


End of a Name

by OneofWebs



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ancient Rome, Beginning of the Arrangement (Good Omens), Biblical Reinterpretation, Canon Compliant, Crowley's Origin (Good Omens), Deleted Scene: Aziraphale's Bookshop 1800 (Good Omens), End of the World, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Internal Conflict, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, Nazi Germany, Post-Canon, Regret, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Temptation, The Arrangement (Good Omens), World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-12-28 09:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneofWebs/pseuds/OneofWebs
Summary: It wasn't so much that they had told Crowley to "go up there and cause some trouble", it was thathetoldthemthat he was going to cause the most trouble a demon had ever seen. With only encouragement behind him, Crowley faces the first choice, and he plants a tree.For six-thousand years, Crowley will make choices. He will atone for them. He will strive to do better. He will find that it is not so easy to dethrone himself, not when the crown on his head has dripped in evil since the day he put it there. When comes time to face the consequences of his first choice--the first temptation--he will realize all he ever had to do was apologize.This is where Crowley started. This is where Crowley will end - An Origin Story





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> Time to post this monster of a fic. This was originally going to be for the GO Big Bang, but I ended up deciding for my mental health, it was better to just drop. I'd already finished this fic about a month ago, so nothing to lose! I'll try not to post it too fast, since the Acts are kinda hefty, but I do hope everyone enjoys!
> 
> I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into writing this.
> 
> I want to thank the people who have been so supportive to me in this endeavor. It's been a long, difficult ride, but I'm glad that things have come to the point of where they are. My TopCrowley server (link in the end notes) has been super supportive, and so have the people I've been lucky enough to meet through the bang. You guys are the reason I got to this point, and I thank you <3

Sex was something. Sex was _something._ In the moment, sex was _everything._ It was revenge. It was forgetting. It was putting things _right_ in a sick and twisted way where everything else had gone so wrong. It was anger. It was pain. It was a tight constricting feeling at the back of Crowley’s throat where he refused to let himself be anything but furious, anything but vengeful and horrific. Anything else would spell disaster, but this. He could do this. He could do _demon_, if that’s what they wanted so bad from him. He could do _demon_ in all the worst ways, in all the painful terrible little moments that were everything from Wrath to Lust to a temptation so powerful he’d quite gone and used it on himself. But it was mostly just _anger_.

He was used to using people. It was what he _did._ Used them for his own gains and being nice was the greatest and easiest path to everyone. In one small word or a smile, anyone would hand him his heart without a second thought. For it, he’d grinned and tucked his head just right, popping up behind and grinning wider. Listening so intently. Calling his name. Aziraphale. Something like sulfur on his tongue for the effort he’d gone to learn that name, but he’d tasted it, and he liked it. He knew _everything_ about this one. Everything he hadn’t learned at the Garden; he’d learned on his own. And the rest, Aziraphale told him himself. Not a single bit of punishment, not a _word_, for handing away his flaming sword. A flame grew quite loud and roaring in Crowley’s eyes, for that.

Aziraphale was God’s _new_ favorite_._

It was how Crowley knew. Not just for his standing there on Earth with the damned of the damned, but it was because he’d been told. Warned ahead of time, maybe, and done nothing but stand there for it all.

“God’s a bit tetchy,” he’d said.

Tetchy. And what a ridiculous thing to say—God was always tetchy at someone, at something. It was in Her nature to be a cruel and merciless thing. Her job was a lonely one, and what other thing might lonely spawn but a deep-set mount of self-loathing that even a god would be vulnerable to? A god who had created life and death and the cycle that they played in, the never-ending march to die. She’d done it; She’d done it all on her own quite well, and for what? To go forth and speed the whole thing up? A bit of a perfectionist, Crowley always thought in bitterness. She’d given the humans free will and damned them all the same for using it. She’d damned the rest of them too: Crowley and his kind. Crowley. Specifically. In ways he remembered all too well. Wished he could forget.

“But they’re drowning everybody else?” Crowley said in feigned interest. Better interest than _anger_, which he was bursting with. “Not the kids? You can’t kill kids.”

Aziraphale just nodded in a way that said they _could_ kill kids and they would. They were going to kill the kids who hadn’t a thought for the rest of their lives save chasing a goat. The poor goat, indeed, but the children were nothing but children. There hadn’t been time enough to turn bad. Just like angels, humans were born _good_. They learned hate. They learned anger. They learned these things through that cursed will that God gave them Herself, and then what a joy she took in drowning them all. Even if Aziraphale was convinced She had a plan, Crowley knew better. He knew _so _much better, and Aziraphale was just blind to it.

What joy Crowley might take, for himself, in opening Aziraphale’s eyes for him.

It only got worse as the day went on. Noah built his boat, and the kids played without a care in the world for what future they would face. Under the bottom of a brand-new ocean, Crowley wagered, and he gritted his teeth for it. If he could, he would save them. He would try, at the very least, to save the ones he could. The children. They were the least worthy to face the wrath of a God who couldn’t bear the consequences of Her own actions. Couldn’t bear to face the truth that She’d done this to Herself, the moment She created free will. If She’d wanted humans to stay in line, well. She would have just made more angels. Maybe She’d just so far blinded herself to her own delusions that She, too, couldn’t see beyond the fake ideal of plans. Crowley knew better. He knew _so_ much better. And he would spend the rest of his time on Earth trying to spite Her for it.

His first spite would be a temptation; if only issue arose that children hadn’t had time enough to learn how to be cruel or how to be kind. They didn’t take. They wouldn’t take. Not to a temptation, not to magic. They were the true ideal of neutral, and that only served to fuel the flames in Crowley’s gut. They the whole of them, damned as they were. It was a gift of sorts, then; they would all wash away and straight to Hell to join Lucifer’s army. But the children would be neither here nor there, and if God sought to steal them for Herself, She was a bigger fool than Crowley gave Her credit for. There was no goodness in the gray of a child, as there was no dark.

Crowley knew where they would go, and he did not like to dwell on it.

And by the time the rains started to fall, he’d succeeded in rescuing only one small girl with dark curls tied up on her head, a long dusty tunic. Her name was Amaranthine, and she had smiled with all the beauty of hanging stars all at once, wrapped up in Crowley’s tunic, in his arms, where she fell asleep. Crowley found such solace in it, where he’d found a warm place in the hull of the ship, away from the animals. In her breathing. The way their breaths matched together, the way she curled in tighter against his chest. She would lose everything, after this. Her parents would die in the flood. Her brother had not been a child, anymore, and would perish the same. Their family had had animals and a dog, all of whom would die. They were not the chosen ones to ride the boat, and how foolish the idea was. But she would have Crowley. She would have Crowley for as long as she lived.

Then a time passed, long enough that Crowley had fallen asleep, himself. Down deep enough in the hull as they were, no one would find them here. Sleeping was not only well-deserved, but a safe thing to do. It would pass the time, of three days, while it rained and rained and rocked the boat around. Crowley had been relatively surprised at how well Amaranthine slept and joined her. Until he hadn’t. Footsteps were around, quiet and soft ones that he had no business knowing. But he did. He knew everything about Aziraphale: from the shape of his nose to the sound of his feet on wood and sand and stone.

“I thought to find you here,” Aziraphale said. His arms were folded.

Crowley barely opened an eye, “and what of it?” he asked.

“Do you have any idea what sort of trouble you’ll be in if they find—?”

“Trouble? Please,” Crowley shifted himself, the girl in his arms, and curled the fabric farther around her face. “I’m disobeying The Almighty’s great plan; I’ll get a commendation for this,” he hissed.

Aziraphale stiffened. “Quite right, then. I suppose I was just worried.”

Crowley’s face dropped. The fire in his belly vanished. “Worried?”

“Yes, worried. Is it so strange to worry about a _demon_?” Aziraphale was wringing his hands together now in the loose folds of his dress. He knew the answer himself. It was strange. They both found it strange, and still. Aziraphale worried about him. “I know we don’t smite as often as we used to, but—”

“God wouldn’t dare,” Crowley said with all the strength of pride. And he was right. God would smite the humans, but She would not smite Crowley. Not even if he’d begged Her.

“I—I see,” Aziraphale coughed. “Well, I’m. I’m rather impressed, I suppose. I feel—I feel as though I should have helped.”

“Might have been nice. Might see _more_ of them.” Crowley was feeling that bubble again in his throat. A hiss and a snarl, a growl.

“I can’t go against The Almighty, Crawly.”

“Yes, you can. Anyone can. Everyone _should_,” he hissed. His tongue dipped out, and Aziraphale flinched.

“I’m sorry, I am. I wish—I wish I had your strength for it, I suppose.”

Crowley unwound the girl in his arms and laid her gently in the hay, where she hadn’t seemed to realize anything was different. She’d curled up on her side and sucked her thumb, smiling and humming in her sleep as a pleasant dream passed over her. Aziraphale’s work, Crowley guessed, and he laid his wrap down over her as a blanket before standing up. That had been something, something certainly to hear, that an _angel_ was admiring his strength. He almost felt bad over it, and in his recall, thought to say that Aziraphale shouldn’t wish for his strength. His strength had led to the Fall, which had been such a great hurt then and now. He’d wish it on no one, for how he hated Heaven and her angels.

“It’s done,” Crowley said. “Best not to dwell.”

“I suppose so, but really, I just do feel quite awful about it—” Aziraphale stopped when Crowley approached and touched him. Put his hand on Aziraphale’s cheek and just looked at him with those eyes. Those big, unholy, golden eyes.

“It’s alright, angel,” he said it then. Angel. Not so much that it’s what he was, because neither of them needed reminding, but because it was a temptation. It was the subtle way that Crowley’s fingers brushed his cheek, the dripping passion on his lips and in his eyes. It was angel. Not Angel.

“Oh, Crawly. Thank you,” Aziraphale said, smiling. He couldn’t take his eyes away. He was stuck in that trance where he just stared and stared and stared, then thought for a moment how they were inches from a sleeping child. He didn’t know Crowley’s intention, but it seemed rather dastardly. He was a demon, after all.

“I’m ever impressed, you know,” Crowley continued, “that you would deign so far to admire me. I would hope that you don’t Fall for it,” and he meant it. Genuinely, he meant it.

“Well, I—I hadn’t thought to do anything for them. Really, I mean, and maybe I should have.”

“You stood by and watched, angel,” Crowley reminded and hooked both his arms over Aziraphale’s shoulders, this time. “Seems to me that’s a rather _demonic_ thing to do.”

“I—it’s what She wanted. She said that they all must—”

“Not all,” Crowley reminded. “Just the ones She hates.”

And it was enough to sow the doubt that Aziraphale would need for the rest of his life. Enough to make him question, yet not enough to make him Fall. Crowley was sure of it, in that moment, that Aziraphale would never Fall. Not as long as he was God’s new favorite toy, and that must have been why they fell so quickly into this. The old toy and the new toy, desperately seeking some type of solace and meaning in each other, instead. Because it meant nothing to be God’s favorite, just that you were safe until She tired of you. It was an anxious thing, waiting. A cruel thing, when they kissed.

Aziraphale moaned something pretty into it like he was quite taken by the whole ordeal, and they moved off away from Amaranthine. Then it was just dirty, because Aziraphale was so in _love,_ and Crowley was so in hate. Hate and anguish that he’d been replaced with just another angel. Just another somebody who only knew how to do what he was told, and he did it so well. All angels did, really, but Crowley felt particularly devious about this one as he took him. Stole from him, really, what Grace he had. Fucked into him with all the rage he’d felt since he’d Fallen—and Aziraphale just took it.

“Wider,” Crowley would say, and Aziraphale spread himself out like a dove.

“Louder,” Crowley demanded, and Aziraphale’s arm fell away from his lips. He _sang_ for Crowley.

“I want Heaven to hear you,” Crowley hissed. Heaven had to be able to hear this. They had to be watching, all unable to do anything, to intervene. God’s favorite had no friends. It was why he’d fallen so easily into Crowley’s trap, because who had ever been kind to him before? Certainly not _angels_, the beasts.

Crowley threw his head back and groaned at it, looking up and wondering. Wondering if God was watching. If She knew what he was doing. Taking from her favorite angel, defiling him in the dirt of a boat She’d meant to save her _favorites._ But Aziraphale would not be saved, not after this. Not after Crowley had fucked him so thoroughly that he could feel _Grace_ around his prick, in his mouth through tongues and vile spit. It was his for the taking, Heaven be damned. Heaven, but not Aziraphale. Oh, no. Grace suited Aziraphale. Made him pretty and shine with the light of the clouds when he came and shouted his pleasure. For Crowley—for _Crawly._

Crowley wondered, as they laid there on the soiled mat, if God knew. If God knew what he’d done, and how She must have felt about it. Maybe that She’d even been jealous. Had She wanted Aziraphale just like that? Was She mad that Crawly had gotten to him first? And what a show they’d made of it. Crowley felt sated and happy for once, even in his bitterness. Lying there felt worthy, the moment he did, and he breathed out into God’s air and God’s mind. Did She enjoy the show? Was She angry? Crowley hoped she was angry. Hoped she was furious at Her own game, for her sad little love of an angel.

Only, the thoughts died in silent prayer when Crowley turned on his side and looked at what he’d done. Aziraphale deserved to be damned for the smile on his face and the half-lidded droop of his eyes. For how uselessly happy he looked; enthralled, even. Crowley even felt _bad_ for his advantage, for the temptation. No one would have been able to resist that touch, not even Gabriel, he thought. Though he’d only used it once before. On second time, he thought he might regret them both. Because Aziraphale looked at him with thoughts and stars in his eyes, like it had meant something. And maybe it had—to Aziraphale. To Crowley, sex was angry and vengeful, now. Aziraphale thought differently, perhaps.

And Crowley couldn’t stand the sight of it a moment longer. Heaven wasn’t good. Heaven wasn’t love. Heaven was filled to the brim with self-important pricks all made in God’s image to appease Her and fulfill Her at a moment’s notice. Aziraphale would be no different. He _couldn__’t_ be any different. Heaven wouldn’t let him be. Crowley had fallen for a _question._ For one word. One word had ended his life as he knew it and sent him tumbling down into a pit of sulfur. If Aziraphale was any different than God intended, he would Fall for it. Favorite or not.

Better to cut it off before it grew. Crowley left. Crowley left Aziraphale to lay there and bask in his own feelings. Aziraphale deserved them. He deserved whatever fantasy he’d crafted about a demon doing nothing more than demon’s work. That was his job. That was his job, and he _enjoyed_ it. Even if the bright blue of Aziraphale’s eyes had reminded him sorely of someone else; even if he’d sowed as much doubt in his own gut as he’d put into Aziraphale’s. None of it mattered, not in the long run. He’d set foot on this earth to spite God, and he would do it. Aziraphale be damned, then. Damned straight back to Heaven.

Amaranthine was awake when Crowley returned, straightened up like nothing had ever happened. She was all wound up in the wrap she’d been left with fear painted over her face, under the makeshift hood she’d crafted. There were worlds of thoughts spinning through her mind, there, and Crowley understood. He did not question it, then, when he sat down and she fell into his side. He put an arm around her and tried not to hurt her with his nails, but she cried regardless. She knew what Crowley knew, long before the rain came. That she would never see her family, nor her friends, nor her dog, ever again. Crowley had plucked her right out of a barrel before the beginning of the flood and stole onto the ark. She knew. He knew. And she stayed close for it.

“Who are you?” she asked him, finally. “A name?”

“Crowley,” he told her. He’d decided on it long ago. If things went his way, he would never see Aziraphale again. The world was big enough for the both of them, and he would never share his new name. “What’s your name, little girl?” he knew. He already knew, but it seemed a very human thing of him to ask.

“Amaranthine,” she replied. “Papa called me Ama.”

“Ama,” Crowley repeated and tugged her close. Just like Papa had, once. “You don’t mind me, do you? The name or anything?”

Ama shook her head. “I like it,” she said. “Crowley.”

It sounded nice on her tongue, like a song not yet played in tune. He liked how it rolled and festered there in the air between them; the first time his new name had ever been said. He’d been mulling it over, after he learned about this whole business, changing his name. But this had been all it took to push him over the edge. Ama liked his new name, so he closed his eyes and leaned back into the wood of the hull. He would keep it. For her, he would be Crowley.

Amaranthine married. Crowley hadn’t much time, in his time with her. They had a house; he could provide her with food and drink and a warm bed at night. He’d even managed to scrape together enough of a miracle that, when the marriage presented itself, she married well. The man was well above her station, but oh how smitten he was. When the time came to talk out the details, Crowley could meet every demand the man’s family had. With the snap of a finger. And he whispered dirty things into their ears from across the table to make them greedy and angry for it. By the end of the talk, they were to be wed, and the family had more livestock than they knew what to do with. Crowley knew, at heart, that he shouldn’t mess with creation like that. But it felt so good knowing that God was watching him and weeping.

At the official joining, Crowley told himself that this was really just another way to spite God. For ten years, now, he’d taken care of a girl whom She had meant to die. For ten years, the girl had a father and was happy. And she would continue in those same ways until she died. Death was an inevitable ending, Crowley knew, but he sorely cared to think about it. Instead, he smiled when Amaranthine looked at him. All things considered; he was glad that she’d taken so well to her match. That they’d both taken to each other. No miracle could have caused that, and what a rare thing to find in a day of arranged marriages for power.

Maybe Amaranthine wouldn’t have power, but she would have joy. There was a power in that, a certain type of soft one that made Crowley smile when she looked at him with stars in her eyes. He’d vowed to always give her stars, like that. That she would be happy and fulfilled until the day he could do no more. And after. He wasn’t sure what to think on that, and chose not to, often. It was a painful idea of what might happen to her after she died. That God wouldn’t take her, and she’d be too good for Satan. It would leave her in purgatory at best, and that was a fate just as bad at the best of times. Those thoughts were best for another time. For a future Crowley didn’t want to see.

Some odd number of months and a year later, Crowley was sitting bedside while Amaranthine rocked her first child in her arms, against her breast. Her first child was a boy, strong and healthy because Crowley wanted him to be. And, she’d named him Crowley. After her father, she said, smiling wide enough to crease her cheeks in such a way that Crowley couldn’t help but smile back. The babe in her arms was beautiful, and he looked so much like her too. Fondness was swelling up in Crowley’s chest, really, and he took his namesake in his arms for a moment. Even before Amaranthine had let her husband hold him. Crowley smiled and smiled and curled his hair behind his ears so the babe couldn’t tug.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Ama asked.

“He looks very much like you,” Crowley replied, then handed him off to the husband when he came around. His family hadn’t wanted to be around for the birth, which left the room empty save for the four of them.

“You think so?” She really enjoyed the idea and looked up where her husband smiled.

“He does,” he confirmed, “very much so, my Amaranth.”

Amaranthine was overly excited to take back her baby and held him close. He was a quiet thing, much like his parents, and Crowley felt all the fonder for it. Not as though he particularly minded the screaming aspect of kids, and had always kept a story on hand to remind Amaranthine how much of a troublemaker she had been. But she was older now, wiser, and a mother at that. She would be finding her own way, soon, and Crowley would ensure she was healthy and happy through it all. As a final spite to God, of course, because Crowley was a demon. He couldn’t care. He couldn’t love. There was no Love left in a demon.

Her second child was also a boy. And her third was a little girl with tight black curls who looked very much like her father. Their animals were doing well, their crops. Everything was wonderful until the winter came. Crowley, the namesake, was ten already. The second boy was seven, and the girl was nearly six. All too young, if you asked the demon Crowley. Too young to face what he feared would be on the horizon, when Amaranthine fell sick. A bedridden illness had taken hold of her seemingly overnight, and how unfair it was. She was still young. Her children were young. Her husband was young—it wasn’t _fair._

They’d called for a medicine man, first, before Crowley decided it had been a waste of time. He had shouted and screamed all manner of things until he was alone in the room with his daughter. His daughter—that’s right. She was his. She belonged to him. He’d saved her from the flood, and he would save her from this fate. If he didn’t, he couldn’t imagine what it would mean or where she might go. Or if she’d disappear altogether. It seemed a cruel enough thing that God might do to him, to the girl that he’d saved after she’d found so much fullness in her life. None of this was fair.

“Crowley,” she’d barely managed to croak, now.

“It’s alright, flower, I’m here,” he said, holding her hand. “Everything will be alright. You know that I make things alright.”

Amaranthine smiled at him. Crowley had always made things okay. She remembered that quite endearingly, while he squeezed her hand and looked afraid. What a gift she’d been given in him, she smiled. Crowley had saved her, and she scarcely believed he would do it again. It didn’t bother her. None of it bothered her, not really. Not anymore. Warmth had spread up through her and then cold, and then something bright and dark all at once with a snap in the back of her mind.

And nothing changed.

Her eyes closed, then, in quiet solace. Another snap, another rush of warmth and Love and darkness. And.

Nothing changed.

Crowley might have cried if he had it in him to do anything other than stare at her. Lying there in peaceful solitude like she’d accepted it. Like she knew that Crowley couldn’t save her, and that it would be alright, in the end. As if she’d learned some secret that Crowley couldn’t know, so still, she smiled. Like she always did. It was some blessing she’d turned out so full of life and joy, things that Crowley wished for and longed for. He must have given them all to her and left none other for himself, and now. That she was so close to the horizon and not to him, what might he have left?

He had a chance, that’s what he had. He stole away from the bed and stormed from the house with a hiss in his throat and anger in his eyes. If a demon’s power couldn’t save her, maybe an angel’s could. Aziraphale was still close by, he could _feel_ the bugger hovering around in all his goodness and favoritism. It didn’t matter—he who still had God’s Grace in him might be able to save Amaranthine. Might be able to bring her back to Crowley, where she belonged. He’d held her there all her life, and what of it now? What mattered of it now, in the wake of death, and how unfair it seemed to him. Only if he couldn’t change it.

Nearly half a day it took to ride to town, and when he did, he found Aziraphale sitting on the steps of a temple like some sort of _good_ little person. It made him sick, but he tacked on his smile and approached regardless. Aziraphale had been talking to a group of children like he had any right to even look at them and speak of goodness and Grace. Crowley could have spat at his feet, but he didn’t. He moved through the crowd until he was standing directly in front of Aziraphale, scowling.

“Angel,” he said, and Aziraphale jerked to look. He recognized the black tunic, the wrap, the golden eyes, and ever-red hair. He even _beamed_ at the sight of him.

“Oh, Crawly, how nice to see you.”

“I need your help,” right to the point.

“Well then,” Aziraphale shifted. “I suppose I could help. What do you need?”

“I need you to come with me, please. The house is right outside town; we’ll be back by nightfall.”

Aziraphale didn’t need to hear the story when he heard the fear in Crowley’s voice. It was important, and he knew that he had to help. He left those who had gathered to hear him without a single question to follow Crowley. On the way, Crowley told him. He confessed his crime of passion right there at Aziraphale’s side, how he’d saved that girl and become the only family she had. Now she was dying, and it was so simple to fix. An illness. Surely, he could fix an illness—he just needed a miracle. A real miracle, not a demonic bit of magic. Aziraphale had surely raised the dead before, under God’s command. He only need do it once without, and Crowley would never ask another favor.

“I’ll see what I can do,” was all Aziraphale would promise. Crowley would take it, believe in it, and weep for it if he must. Anything to save Ama.

Nightfall had truly broken when they arrived at the house, but no one was sleeping. The children were still awake all sitting in their beds, and the husband lingered outside the door. He looked like he might collapse, but life entered him again when Crowley came storming through with Aziraphale behind him. With an order not to disturb, Crowley closed the door to Amaranthine’s room behind them and rocked his back into it. Desperate. Pleading. Looking between Aziraphale and Amaranthine like something would happen just from proximity.

And nothing changed.

“This is her,” Crowley said, ushering Aziraphale closer. “You have to do something, I can’t—I can’t lose her, angel. You have to understand.”

“Oh, Crawly,” Aziraphale whispered, digging his teeth into his lip.

“Aziraphale, I’ll never ask for another favor. Please, you have to—”

But Aziraphale was turning around with a face done up in sadness and hidden tears. Of sympathy and— “There’s nothing I can do, Crawly.”

“What? No—no, you’re joking.” Crowley pushed passed Aziraphale to kneel down at the bedside and take Amaranthine’s hand again. “Aziraphale, please! I’m begging you here, and I—”

“I can’t,” Aziraphale shook his head. “I can’t save her, Crawly. I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t even tried!” Crowley accused, but Amaranthine shifted at the sudden shout, and he quieted. He shushed her, running his free hand over her hair and down the side of her face. “I’m sorry, love,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

Amaranthine smiled at him. “It’s alright,” she said. “You’ve made everything alright.”

Crowley stiffened then and felt her hand limp in his grasp. Watched as the stars in her eyes died, and her breath gave a final useless puff. Crowley stared at her in disbelief, squeezing into her skin with all his might and nails, like he might save her that way, somehow. Any way that was possible. She couldn’t just _leave_ him like that. He had so much planned for the future, short as it might have been for humans. In another fifteen years, he would have expected her to die. Would have been ready for it when she was old and happy, and her son was married. That wouldn’t happen. She would never see her grandchildren. She would never know what the look on her son’s face would be when they found him a match.

“Crawly—” Aziraphale reached out for him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t,” Crowley bit out. “I don’t need your sympathy.”

“Maybe not, but you have it. All of it, if you should desire. I can’t truly understand your loss, but I can mourn with you.”

“You’re a fool, angel, to mourn with a demon,” Crowley bit out. He’d ducked his head, but Aziraphale could hear the tears in his voice.

“Maybe,” Aziraphale agreed, “but it’s my choice. I wouldn’t leave you alone in this state.”

Aziraphale should have left, Crowley decided. Should have left and never looked back, but he didn’t. He knelt down beside Crowley instead and kept a firm hand on his shoulder, to ground him, while he wept at his daughter’s side. He stayed through the visits, while her husband brought their kids in to learn the truth. And he stayed after, to cook them all a meal for the trouble. Then, he stayed the night. He didn’t sleep, but neither did Crowley. They sat up together around a fire in silence, instead.

Crowley wished Aziraphale would have left, but he didn’t. He stayed, right there, an arm’s reach away, and watched over Crowley like some guardian. And damn it all, Crowley felt his chest swell at it. It was kind. It was a kindness he’d never known in Heaven, and certainly would not find in Hell. It was altogether different and unique, a side of angels that only Aziraphale had found and shone to keep. Crowley couldn’t look away from it, couldn’t let himself stop thinking on about it. How much he regretted what he’d done so many years ago, but they wouldn’t talk on it. Not now. Not ever. Some things were better left unsaid, apparently, and that was one of them. Whatever Aziraphale had thought the night to belong to him, and the truth that Crowley knew deserved to be buried with him in the deepest pit of Bolgia Ten.

Moments turned to minutes which turned to years, and Crowley lost himself in the rabble. Lost himself to the utter joy in ruining everything God had planted here in her misery and her spite and her _Love_. Whatever that was. Crowley found it quite wondrous to forget it all. There were murders and theft, pillage and rape. Crowley walked through it like his own person Eden painted black and red with what he left in his wake. Tortures unknown to man, only talked about in Hell, spread out like the crows who watched and spoke. They told Crowley things, one trickster to another. The lot of them said things together in unison like Legion and whispered the telling of the star before Crowley had heard it from the ladder.

He’d been there to lock the inns, just for fun. Sitting off to the side in one of the rooms dressed so finely in women’s garb. If Amaranthine hadn’t been able to grow to see it all, then he certainly would. Whenever he felt the urge, just to keep the thought alive. And from there, all it took was a heady little smirk for the innkeeper to turn away the couple. Something about it felt sick and delicious, all at once. And Crowley followed. Until Mary had her pathetic little babe in a barn, and Crowley couldn’t help but nudge the cow to try and bite the thing. It was funny, and he chuckled to himself before vanishing. Another thirty years, and he could have his fun in truth.

Jesus had just been born. The crows had named him long before Mary had spoken it there among the hay and the grass. Jesus. God’s one last attempt to save Her own creation, She might send Her only son. Crowley just laughed. He drank something drinkable and _laughed_ at the idea of it all, tucked away in his own private Hell. God had _made_ them the way they were. Humans were humans because God had crafted them, with Her own hands, to _be_ humans. Her expectation that they could be anything more was worthy of a laugh. Worthy of Crowley’s time, indeed, to take up arms against Her chance. Jesus, by definition, would be human. And humans, by definition, would be tempted.

Crowley started small, like being the son of God didn’t mean much, and Jesus would be just as susceptible as any. But he wasn’t. Not to even so much as an extra bite of food, which Crowley had shoved into his own mouth for the anger of it all. God would be quite overwhelmed with joy if all humans had been like Jesus. Partially or truly God, or not, Jesus had human in him. Crowley could see it like a burning pile of wood waiting to smolder and run over, boundless cup of wine just waiting to spill. He only had to do it _right_. Something that even Jesus would have to crack a glance to, and the question remained what would a God made man even deign to look at? That would be the quest. Food was certainly out, and drink had followed. Crowley sat at the table with his arms crossed, angrily huffing.

There was a whole list of sins at Crowley’s disposal though, so he stopped by, in the morning, to where Jesus worked by his father’s side in the shop. Crowley hadn’t even needed to miracle up a distraction, because Jesus saw him and walked over on his own. It was of little consequence, how he was tempted, so Crowley ignored it. Instead, he offered Jesus an alternative to slaving away at carpentry all day—what a boring thing to do, anyway. Surely it could put them all straight to sleep, and if that’s what Jesus wanted. He could have it. He certainly didn’t even need to sleep when he could come out into town with a beautiful woman on his arm. Crowley hadn’t let that go, just yet. Jesus refused the offer, though. With a look Crowley couldn’t quite place.

He tried pride, then, the following day. He stopped by the shop to admire what Jesus was working on. To say that it was the greatest craftsmanship he’d ever known, and that it made sense why Jesus wouldn’t succumb to resting or slacking. Jesus had skills unmatched by his fellow carpenters. The bench was smooth and sturdy, designed to last yet still look ornate in the process. Truly, and in some truth, Crowley had never quite seen a bench that matched it. Jesus would laugh, though, and appreciate the compliment. He would point out the flaws he was still learning to fix. He would share stories of how often he had to ask his father for help—Joseph, Crowley learned. And all the while, Jesus had this look Crowley couldn’t quite place.

Greed followed nicely, the following day with a new piece of furniture that Crowley could compliment. To Crowley’s comment about charging more, charging what the piece was _worth_, Jesus replied that they made what they needed to live on and no more. Nothing more. And still, they would give to those in need if there was any left. What a right down piece of good in him, that was. Crowley could _see_ God’s influence spiraling out of him in a way that made him _angry._ He’d been angry at the tavern, but this was worse. This was so much worse. And without even leaving to come back another day, Crowley delved right in for envy and wrath, all at once.

“I’ve lied,” he said. “Your work is nothing compared to that boy’s down the street, and they certainly _make_ more than you in your pitiful little shop.”

Jesus continued to work, listening.

“It’s horrendous, your work!” Crowley shouted. “You should be ashamed that you charge money for it. Anyone could go down the street and buy twice the quality for only a silver more! You’re a cheap knock-off—” and it felt too real, all at once, that Jesus was cheap. A knock-off. A pretend version of God sent down to do what She would never admit to needing. Jesus, sent to save the humans, because God recognized Her own folly in creation.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, dear lady,” Jesus said, and all too polite for it. “Has something happened that you’re so upset? I’d be willing to lend a hand, of course.”

Of course. Jesus saw right through him, and it was disgusting. Crowley could have spat at his feet for it, this feigned kindness. There was no kindness left in Heaven or on Earth for a demon—he knew that. He believed it because it had been branded into his skin when he fell, and they took his legs from him. Cursed to crawl on the ground, well, God already knew how he felt about that. Maybe having legs again had been a strange ordeal, but he had them, and he would _walk._

When he did walk, and away, it was not without noticing that look again. Jesus looked a bit put out at Crowley’s sudden departure, but there was more to it than that. He’d been looking at Crowley like that since they’d met, that night, when Jesus had refused the extra wine, the extra morsel. The sort of look that meant he was holding something back. Discontent. A passion, perhaps, a desire. That something hadn’t quite added up in his God-given-to-be mind, and it was the weakness Crowley needed. It was the weakness that could tempt even God and Her son to sin. Crowley would just need time, of course. Time enough to plan it right. His seed would plant quite nicely at a broken moment, when Jesus was left as weak as he would be.

It happened in the wilderness, in a desert. When Jesus was older and wiser, when he had almost all but forgotten the sharp attack of Crowley’s hair. After forty days, he had been left hungry, thirsty, and tired. But Jesus had done what he had set out to do, even if he would not leave yet. Because there was Crowley, sitting on a rock with the wrap around his head and hair dangling down over his chest. Jesus looked at him, right into his flashing yellow eyes, and froze. He recognized Crowley, because he had to. Crowley had come around so often. To the shop. To the markets. To the temple. Just always there, in the background, and Jesus had never felt so thoroughly tempted than he did when he noticed Crowley. Now, he was beginning to think it had never been Crowley at all.

“So,” Crowley started, brushing some of the sand from his dress, “son of God, are you?”

“I’ve never even learned your name,” Jesus said in response, a shock over his face that Crowley hadn’t expected. Jesus hadn’t expected his own response—Crowley’s question ignored in turn for his own, what? Curiosity? Whatever it was, it didn’t feel right. But he had to know. He had to know Crowley’s name.

Crowley hadn’t _thought_ of a name, so he mulled it over within seconds and decided. “Mary,” he said.

Jesus didn’t seem at all bothered.

“Are you the son of God, then? I’ve been wondering.” Crowley leaned forward onto his knees, smiling a certain type of grin that spoke predator at prey and nothing else.

“How would you even ask such a question? What are you?”

“Well,” and Crowley spread out to jump down from the rock, “they say the devil comes dressed as everything you’ve ever wanted. Does it hold true?”

Jesus didn’t answer. In fact, he stiffened and stepped back. But in silence, he spoke louder a word than he could have ever with his lips. Crowley reveled in it: his answer, the fear in his eyes. If learning Crowley was the devil hadn’t been enough, it was the correctness of it all. That the devil came dressed as everything Jesus wanted. In the form of a tall and slim woman with sharp angles and long hair. A horrible temptation that he should have left behind him, but Crowley had never really left. Crowley had been following him for ages. Since the night he was born. Somehow, in the distance, Jesus realized this.

“I must be right, then. You look a bit spooked.”

“Well, I think I’ve just discovered something a bit off about you.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“You’re the Devil.”

Crowley nearly laughed, but he didn’t bother to correct. The Devil was a title, was a _crown_, he could get used to wearing. It felt like the right amount of spite in the other direction, and to come from the mouth of God’s own son made it tasty, made it wonderful. Crowley didn’t laugh, though, he just smiled in his way.

“Aren’t you hungry, son of God? Surely, with all that power at your fingertips, it shouldn’t be hard to feed yourself. The rocks, perfect shape they are. Change one to bread.” Gluttony. Again. Ever reminiscent of the very first time they’d met, and Jesus knew.

Jesus shook his head, just like the first time. “Man shall not live on bread alone,” he repeated, “but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Crowley snorted. They hadn’t just called him The Magician for nothing, so he snapped his fingers. All at once, they were not in the wilderness, in the desert, with the animals and the plants. They were standing atop a very tall building that overlooked the world. A place where Crowley could never step foot again, but Jesus didn’t need to know that. It looked real. It felt real. There was wind and the sound of birds. Nice little touches that had Jesus standing there in awe, until he looked down. Until he saw the expanse of the city beneath him in shapes and colors he could have never imagined. Everything God had kept for Herself.

“Why don’t you throw yourself down? Go see the sights for yourself. Go see what you can _do_,” Crowley said with pride on his tongue. He could quote passages too. “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Crowley frowned.

Jesus frowned. “It is also said that you should not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Crowley scoffed, “no God of mine, She is.”

Jesus said nothing.

“Fine. You’re quite the difficult one, so let’s try something different, shall we?”

They were on a mountain, then. A mountain that had never existed on the surface of a planet, but through the scope on the end, Jesus could see everything. From the stars to the planets to things that existed in the far out-stretched reach of a place he’d never known. It felt like the sky had expanded and left him wasted in a pit of nothing, remembrance of the house he’d grown up in. But in those stars, Jesus saw more. He saw lands and people he’d never before known. Men with pure white skin and light hair. Women with thin eyes and ornate dresses. Children playing with toys he might have seen in a dream, in another life, before he stepped foot on Earth. And they were all the Kingdoms of the world. All that God had kept to Herself.

“I can give you this,” Crowley said. “All of it. You need only bow,” and he pointed to the ground beneath them, a look in his eyes. This was envy.

“Back away from me, Devil. I worship the Lord my God and serve Her only.”

Crowley scoffed. A wave of a hand, and they were back in the wilderness as if they’d never left. Only, Crowley was standing on the rock with his arms folded, looking out over the desert with some scrutiny as he thought. He had tried every Sin but one. It was a Sin he’d tried before with disastrous consequences. And he would have never thought so poorly for it if not for one, sore little angel who was not ever around. Not when Crowley didn’t look, anyway. So, he thought he might try it again. Third time was always the charm, anyway. This time it might do him some good.

“The Devil comes dressed as everything you’ve ever wanted,” Crowley said. Crowley turned on the rock. “So, tell me, son of God, why does the Devil come dressed to you as Mary Magdalene?”

“Is that your name?” Jesus asked.

Crowley stepped down from the rock. “Do you want it to be?” he asked, a leer in his eyes.

Jesus should have stepped back, and he knew he should have. But he didn’t. He stood his ground, even when Crowley was inches from him. They were quite the same height, and _Mary_ was the tallest woman Jesus had ever met. One of her good traits, he’d decided right there. Because he could stare directly into her eyes and know what she was thinking, and they were not particularly pure thoughts. They rebounded and flitted between them until Jesus knew the thoughts like his own and swallowed.

“I’ve never even considered—”

“I know enough,” Crowley supplied. “I can do anything you like. _Be _anything you like, if you’ve a preference,” and he eyed down the length of Jesus’ body. What a particular type of _spite_ it would be if he could tick two things off the list in God’s old-fashioned eyes. They weren’t quite in the modern times yet, and everyone still raved about the devil’s nature in sodomy.

“This isn’t—we can’t. Mother wouldn’t—”

“_Mother_ isn’t listening,” Crowley said, wrapping his hand up in the collar of Jesus’ robes. “_Mother_ doesn’t listen, and She doesn’t like questions. Best not ask any. Best not to ask _why_, you realize. Why you’ve been left in the desert with no help, at the whims of the Devil.”

“You’re saying that—that She’s abandoned me?”

“Oh, Christ,” Crowley said, dangerously close to his lips. “She’s abandoned us all.”

Jesus did kneel. Not so much alone on his knees, but on his hands, too. A man could rise above any Sin he wanted, but Lust was one that few could see past. Jesus was no exception, a special case, rather. Crowley cried out his blasphemes straight to the sky, smiling and quite _proud_ of himself. Was God watching? She had to be. She had to know what Crowley had done to Her only son. Had to know that he _wanted_ it. Every cry that came from Jesus’ lips was Crowley’s fault, Crowley’s doing, and it was true and total worship. Worship your Lord and Devil and serve her only.

Later, they would write that the angels attended to Jesus before he ever laid with a demon. Later, God would hide Her shame and erase it from the minds of man and angel alike, but Crowley would remember. He would remember in the weeks to come when all things fell into motion. He learned of these things too late to do anything about them. That God had sent Her only son to _die._ It sent sparks of anger in flames down Crowley’s spine when he heard. Maybe Jesus wasn’t a child anymore, but he had been. He’d been a child when God condemned him, and he would _always _be Her child. And still, in Her infinite and ineffable wisdom, She could find no better way to save a people that did not need to be saved than killing Her own son. Her only son.

Crowley even _regretted_ what he’d done.

Mary Magdalene made one more appearance while Jesus was pushed through the streets, a cross on his shoulders and thorns in his head. There were tears in the blood and blood in the tears that streamed down Jesus’ face, and he fell. They ordered someone from the crowd to help him carry the cross, and for a moment, Crowley wished he had chosen a different face for the time. That he would have been the one to help, but he walked on. He followed the path with his eyes locked on Jesus. Watching. Regretting. Wishing anything different could have happened, but Jesus was just another pawn, at the end. Just another thing for God to use in attempts to hide Her shame and Her folly. Crowley was disgusted, but he didn’t have the power to change anything. Not anymore. He was not the Devil, after all. Just a demon.

He followed to the site. And then froze in the crowd when he saw something so familiar that it hurt—that _shock_ of white and bright standing among the crowd. There was as much rage as there was sadness, all at once. Because Aziraphale had come to see the final deed done. That Jesus would die in all the ways God planned. She had sent her _favorite_ to watch Her son in his final moments. What a crook, She was. Stealing life from a young man who had only ever Loved her. And Jesus only cried to forgive them. Still, the fool believed.

When Crowley approached, Aziraphale knew he was there immediately. Something about being able to sense the occult energy, but they looked at each other.

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?” Crowley asked, with all the expected rage bubbled up inside of his throat. Still, he smiled.

“Me? Smirk?” As if Aziraphale couldn’t have been more offended at the idea.

“Well, it was your lot who put him up there,” and Crowley said it with cheek. Like it didn’t tug and crush at all the things in his body he didn’t need. Like a heart and kindness.

“I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawly.”

_Policy_ decisions. And that name. Crowley could have Fallen again, just for that. Just for shouting at the top of his lungs what a disgusting thing that was to say. Jesus was a _person_, and his life and death was just policy? Instead, he snorted. And that name. He hadn’t heard that in centuries. Not since he last saw Aziraphale in the ark. After Amaranthine had approved, he’d kept his name. He’d named himself Crowley because that’s who he’d become, for her, and he would never go back on that word.

“I’ve changed it,” he said, resolute.

“Changed what?”

“My name. Crawly just wasn’t really doing it for me. It's a bit too squirming-at-your-feet-ish,” he shrugged. It seemed a good enough reason as any other could be. Aziraphale didn’t deserve the truth.

“Well, you were a snake,” Aziraphale said, like it wasn’t his lot who’d done that. Crowley hadn’t always been a snake. “So, what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?”

Crowley winced at the last name and nearly asked where Aziraphale had heard it. “It’s Crowley,” he said.

They talked, and Crowley hated all of it. It made sense, that all Jesus had to say was that humans should be kind to each other for them to revolt like this. Humans were a nasty people, but they were exactly what God had made. With freewill and choices all their own. They wouldn’t have revolted if God hadn’t planned for it, though, and Crowley knew that well enough to hurt about it. This was all in the plan, unknowable and great. That Jesus would die.

“I can’t stand to watch this a moment longer,” Aziraphale sighed. “Are you heading off?”

Crowley shook his head. “Think I’ll stay.”

“Well,” Aziraphale straightened his clothes, “if you need anything, I’ll be in town.”

Something caught up in Crowley’s throat, but he swallowed it and nodded. He didn’t need kindness. Especially not Aziraphale’s. Not Heaven’s. But he’d be wrong to deny it, wrong to say he didn’t appreciate the tingle it sent down his spine. Aziraphale _cared._ Perhaps he always had. Perhaps he was the only one left in Heaven who cared, and Crowley had been wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, but. He didn’t have to admit that either. Not now, not in the wake of what was happening, where he could see God’s cruelty put on display for all humanity. That display would last for hours.

It was at the seventh hour, when most of the crowd had vanished, that Crowley marched the hill and stood at the bottom of the cross. Jesus hadn’t died yet. He was weak, thirsty, and tired. And there was no way for him to breathe like that, but Crowley watched him try. It was one last plug of a demon who should have never learned to be kind when Crowley snapped his fingers and filled Jesus’ lungs with air. That was when Jesus saw him, and the smile on his face was weak with exhaustion and joy.

“Do you realize now what God has in store for all of us?” Crowley asked. “If I had known, I might have—I might have done something.”

Jesus’ lips twitched.

“I regret what I’ve done, anyway. Thought there was no better person to hear that than you. Demons don’t generally confess their sins, you understand.”

Nothing. Not so much as a response. Crowley realized he was probably just prolonging Jesus’ suffering, giving him air, letting him breathe. It was a selfish thing to do: to wish to speak with him one last time. But someone had to hear him confess. Someone. No one better than Jesus.

“Do you remember everything that we’ve done?” Crowley asked. “The times that we’ve met? I surely do. I certainly remember sparing a coin or two,” and he laughed much to himself. “I wish it hadn’t had to end this way.”

“I forgive you,” Jesus said.

Crowley couldn’t stop the tears, after that.

Crowley stayed until Jesus died. He stayed to help his body down from the cross with the others that came and met Jesus’ mother. He stayed to help bury Jesus, too. And afterward, when it was said and done, Crowley found Aziraphale sitting at a table with two drinks just waiting for him. For however long he’d been away, the drinks were still fresh. The cool splash against the back of his throat had Crowley feeling better than he had in ages, and Aziraphale smiled at him.

For what had felt like an end was something entirely unlikely, for three days later, Crowley saw Jesus again. The tomb had been empty, and somehow Crowley just _knew_ what had happened. That he should have listened closer to the voices what told him things, but he’d been so caught up in his own useless misery for the time that he had closed everything off. But Jesus had risen, as it was told. Had been told, if Crowley had listened. But he hadn’t. Now he knew. Now he sought to find Jesus but hadn’t had to go far. Jesus found him, first. Or so, they found each other, on a path in the woods where Crowley had walked alone.

“You’re—you’re back,” Crowley said like it was the easiest thing in the world. “I have so much to say, I—”

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” Jesus cut him off.

Crowley’s face fell, all at once.

Jesus had appeared to others in his resurrected state, and none had truly known him. Not until after he was gone, or they had demanded to see the proof in the holes in his hands, his feet, and his side. Crowley hadn’t asked, because he hadn’t needed that sort of proof. No matter what form Jesus would appear to him in, he would know. He would know, and he would never be prepared to hear those words from his lips. Crowley had made a mistake, he knew. He’d apologized for it. He’d heard Jesus _forgive_ him—a demon, unforgivable. Forgiven by the one and only true son of God. Then, there he stood. Ready to take it all away.

“Mother told me what you are,” Jesus spoke. “She told me what you’ve been doing—it’s disgusting. That you would take _advantage_ of anyone, let alone _me._”

“I didn’t—I, well,” Crowley tried to formulate every excuse he could think of, but Jesus was _scowling_ at him. There was anger in his eyes. Crowley stopped talking.

“I can’t believe I let you do what you did. I let you _tempt _me, demon.”

“I told you—I regret what I did. Did you think I was lying?”

“You’re a demon,” Jesus insisted. “It’s what you do.”

So, he hadn’t been forgiven. Not really. The moment Jesus had died, Crowley’s forgiveness vanished. God had made sure of that. She had made sure that Crowley would keep _nothing_ from his time; perhaps what was worse was that She _knew._ She knew what Crowley had done, how he’d felt about it. That for a moment in genuine mood, he’d been happy. A demon was not meant to be happy, especially not a demon named Crowley. God had done sure to remind him of his place.

Crowley would have spat on the ground if he’d had a mind to, but there was nothing but air between them, then. They both stared on, and Jesus even had the audacity to look a bit regretful, too. In the end, it was better. Jesus was the son of God and would ascend, soon. Crowley was a demon. His task was to corrupt humans, which clearly Jesus was no longer. They parted, then. Without a word. No more than a glance that spoke too much and too little all at once. Jesus would finish what he set out to do, and Crowley would head down for an assignment. One that he didn’t have to _pick_ and one that would keep him busy for a long, long time.

As Emperors went, apparently, Emperor Caligula was much more of a handful than Crowley reasonably believed he could deal with. At first, the assignment had seemed easy. Preferable, even. Gaius Caesar, nicknamed Caligula, had taken the throne after his adoptive grandfather and started doing _nice _things. Of course, if anyone in Hell had bothered to read the reports, they would have learned that none of it was particularly nice at all. There was something to be said for the mastermind behind political moves. There were bonuses made to the Praetorian Guard, to bolster their support for him. Treason trials became a thing of the past, to make the people love him. To bring back those who had been exiled so they could see a new Emperor, one who was kind and had freed them. It was a clear-cut path to paving loyalty. Of course, if anyone had bothered to read the rest of the report, where Caligula had lost his mind and pressed for outward, barbaric expansion, went around claiming that he was some sort of god, and killed for his own amusement, Crowley would have never had to step foot in his palace in 40 AD. At least it was summer.

The place was immaculately clean, if not for the clear smell of rot and sex. Crowley was a demon, though. He could pick that sort of thing up where, clearly, not a single human was bothered by the stench. Those humans were all dressed rather spectacularly in their armor and their robes, and not a single person questioned Crowley’s appearance. They were expecting him. A little wave of a demonic hand and the whole Roman Empire knew about him: some famed war hero from battle something or other. The details weren’t clear, and they didn’t have to be. Nobody needed to name exacts. It sounded like pure, commoner ignorance. If everyone knew everything about the fake and less-than-detailed story Crowley had crafted himself, it would be far less believable. As it stood, not even Caligula _really_ knew where he was from, just that he’d heard quite the tales and simply had to have his expertise on board.

Crowley, happy to help at any given instance, arrived in fashionable style, already crowning laurels and a fashion that said he didn’t belong there. Quite as he’d intended, anyway. It gave off the sense that he was foreign and important; for all intents and purposes, _he was._ He marched through the halls like he owned them until he was planted exactly ten feet away from Caligula. All at once, Crowley knew there was absolutely _no_ reason for him to be here. Caligula had made a rather nice home for himself, surrounded by lavish jewels and women _covered_ in lavish jewels. Not much else. Crowley kept his eyes on Caligula, who was currently drinking wine out of a goblet more gold than cup.

“Crowley,” he said, “I’ve been expecting you.”

“I’ve been expected. Here I am,” Crowley replied, and everything felt off.

The first day was settling Crowley into his brand-new villa. Nothing over the top, just one of the largest villas in the area, overdone with gold and marble. Crowley could at least appreciate the taste, even if the only thing he would do there was sleep. It still came fully staffed with slaves and his own personal Praetorian Guard unit. Might have been easier to send them away, but Crowley wasn’t about to turn the Emperor’s gaze on him. He wasn’t in the mood for any unnecessary discorporations, so he gladly accepted the gifts. The slaves, the guards, the wine. The wine was actually quite good, but all a bit stuffy. Crowley hadn’t slept so well in decades, anyway. Certainly not so well in the past eight years.

Crowley was invited back to Caligula’s private chambers on the second day, where they sat together and drank wine while Caligula went on and on about his conquests. He told Crowley everything he’d done since he’d taken reign three years prior, and the list was extensive. From murders to conquering lands to what fun he’d had making his own horse a senator. Caligula had done everything, in any book, that a demon would consider good. Crowley thought it all rather heinous and tried to keep his expression to himself. This wasn’t the kind of cruelty he’d come to expect out of people without so much as a demon’s touch. And he knew, without a doubt, no other demon had been in contact with Caligula. There would have been reports about it.

As it were, no, Crowley was the first demon to ever set foot in Caligula’s presence, and he was appalled. He hadn’t seen the likes of this cruelty since God Herself had set down on the world and punished humans for being _humans_, and in the blink of an eye—maybe Crowley _understood._ What a horrid thing to say, what a terrible thing to think. But he heard the names of the people Caligula had slaughtered in his times, all of it for fun. His own amusement. And that was only the beginning. But Crowley was no different than any of the hired hands Caligula invited into his presence. He was there on invitation alone, and by definition, was expendable.

“That’s quite the amount of achievements,” Crowley said, hiding his disgust behind a goblet of wine.

“The plans have only just started.” Caligula seemed enraptured with himself. “Soon, I shall have the world under my thumb. With your help,” and he sprung to attention, inches from Crowley’s face and a grin Crowley didn’t particularly like, “we can do it sooner.”

“My help,” Crowley repeated. He hadn’t moved a muscle, and Caligula relaxed again. He seemed intrigued.

“I’ve heard stories about you, Crowley. Your prowess on the battlefield,” but his eyes were looking downward. Crowley didn’t move.

“I suspected as much. Didn’t think I’d have such the honor to sit in your presence if you hadn’t,” which was no much more a comment than it was praise for himself. He would have been here regardless, but it showed he knew who he was. He knew Caligula knew who he was, however vague the story would be. Crowley smirked and returned Caligula’s gaze.

“Have you heard stories about me?” Caligula asked, and his intentions were clear.

“Many.”

Caligula settled down into his comfort and smiled. He had, of course, been expecting Crowley to rattle off in praise about him for his exploits. No such thing had happened. Crowley simply sat across from him looking as smug as he could manage, sipping on expensive wine in the room of an emperor. The Emperor.

“Surely, you’ll be available to help me plan my next invasion? I don’t imagine we’ll be able to round up enough troops until next year, but there’s time. There’s always time.”

“I’d be quite honored.” Crowley raised his glass.

There was no time for tempting Caligula. When he wasn’t boasting his own achievements in pride, he was stealing women from their bridal beds in lust. He was a cruel and unjust man, and Crowley watched it. Before Crowley could even so much utter a temptation, Caligula had already done it in tenfold beyond what imagination Crowley still had. It was a sight for eyes that did not want to see. The blood that spread out over the floors of the palace—Crowley could have taken matters into his own hands if he did not care for his life. And he did. He rather liked not having Hell’s wrath on him at all times, so he sat there beside the throne and watched Caligula order the death of another man.

Soon, they would meet with the Senate and hear all about how they disagreed with Caligula’s methods. Crowley could tempt them, but there was little to be said in a politician’s ear that they didn’t already think of themselves. It was much the thing with Caligula, that humans were as vile as the One who made them. The wine was well enough, and it kept Crowley satisfied, for a time. Even it began to sour, come one rather cold night in the winter. They were nearing the turn of the year, and Caligula believed that he was well on his way to ruling what little he knew of the world. Crowley stroked his ego where he could, but for the most part, he listened to Caligula rave about himself. Pride was certainly this man’s chosen vice, where Crowley preferred wrath.

Still, there was wine. As long as there was wine, he would listen. Only the wine had gone bad in the back of his throat when Caligula, for the first time since they’d known each other, put his hand on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley didn’t move, but he did stare from behind his glasses and try to will the touch away. No amount of effort would be cause for that, so he gritted his teeth and waited for Caligula to pull back on his own. It was clear he was drunk, high off the wine and his own self-love. Crowley had refused quite adamantly to ever get drunk in Caligula’s presence, but he had a feeling he might need for it. Caligula’s hand didn’t waver, but it did lower.

“I’ve heard so many tales about you, Crowley,” Caligula slurred together. “Prowess. Not just on the battlefield.”

“I didn’t realize people still gossiped about those tales,” and there weren’t even many of them. It was all a part of the masterful story Hell had built for him. Crowley hadn’t _truly_ lain with anyone since a time he’d rather forget.

“I want to experience everything you have to offer, Crowley,” and Caligula was well on his way to crawling into Crowley’s lap. “Your mind,” he said, curling his hands through Crowley’s hair. “Your skill,” to feeling along the muscles in his biceps. “Your _cock_,” he punctuated with the back of his throat.

Crowley grabbed his hand before it wandered too far, found too much, and smirked. “Gaius,” he said, “I wouldn’t say that’s very appropriate of you.”

“And who are you to tell me what’s appropriate? I am your Emperor.” Caligula frowned.

“That is all you shall be,” Crowley whispered something dangerous right up against his ear. He wouldn’t be very much himself if he didn’t leave Caligula a bit put out for his advance, so he kissed him quite delicately on the temple. “_My_ emperor,” he whispered, and Caligula fell back into the pillows, shocked.

Crowley left him there. Left the room entirely, wine spilled on the floor where he’d been sitting. That was one temptation he would not give into, not for himself and not for another. Might he have won another commendation for it, straight from Hell, but it wasn’t worth his dignity. If they wanted to punish him, then so be it. He wasn’t _afraid_ of Hell. If Hell knew any better, it should be afraid of him. So, he left. He left back to his villa and did not come when summoned, did not so much as leave his own chambers for three days. Three days in which Gaius Caesar, Caligula, killed at his own discretion, in his own anger. That any would be so bold as to _refuse_ the emperor. Not even the women were safe from his wiles, now, and it was the first Crowley heard that Caligula had killed one of his own slaves. One that he kept decorated and bare.

That was when Crowley decided he’d had enough. He needed a drink. He needed to be away from Caligula, far enough away that he could _forget_ what obscenities the man had thought up. No demon would have ever been able to put this into his mind. If there had been, it would have been Crowley—but he hadn’t lifted a finger. He’d lifted a wine glass, and plenty of them, to seeing Caligula fall to his own evil nature time and time again. If Hell had read the reports, bothered to read anything past the first few niceties Caligula had committed, they would have known Hell would have him. Hell already had him.

With something barely drinkable in his hand, the day soured. He heard that _name_ again, though quickly corrected. If Caligula had been bad, and the noise worse, _that_ had been the worst. Everything had come tumbling down as quickly as Crowley had built it up, and he hadn’t even taken a sip of his drink. Whatever it was. He didn’t know, he didn’t care to know—as long as it tasted nothing of sweet, emperor wine, he would drink it in droves until he could no longer stand on his own two feet. That had been the _plan_ anyway.

“Still a demon, then?” Aziraphale asked.

Still a demon. Crowley could have screamed. He could have shouted. He could have burned Rome down in his own anguish, but he settled for snapping: “’Still a demon, then’? What kind of a stupid question is that, ‘still a demon’? What else am I going to be, an aardvark?”

Still a demon. Crowley was frowning, glowering, and staring daggers behind his little putrid glasses. Still a demon. Maybe he would have had a chance at redemption, but God put a sore stickler in that all on Her own. She’d made sure Crowley would never see the light of Heaven again, in any fashion, when She’d told all of Her half lies and mostly truths to Her only son. Crowley had seen good, and he’d seen it in such a way that it’d made him want to change. He’d been _forgiven_, by the son of man. Surely that hadn’t sat well with the Almighty in Her ever-insufferable ways, so it had been taken back with nothing short of a slap in the face. Figuratively, of course. But Jesus hadn’t been on Earth to save demon kind. He’d been there to save mankind. Mankind was considerably not saved, if people like Caligula still roamed around.

“Salutaria,” Aziraphale said in his guilt-ridden voice, taking a drink. He couldn’t even look at Crowley after that, and Crowley felt bad. A demon of his stature shouldn’t feel bad for making an angel upset, especially not one he hadn’t seen in eight years. Better that Aziraphale had just stayed away, but no, he was going to bastardize Crowley’s sulk with more questions.

“In Rome long?”

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation,” Crowley lied. He’d been here for a near six months. “You?”

“I thought I'd try Petronius' new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters.” Aziraphale twiddled about happily at the thought, with his own cup in his hands. He’d been sipping on it, where Crowley had only been staring at his. Now that he thought about it, he’d paid for something called _House Brown._ That had to be dreadful.

“I’ve never had an oyster,” Crowley replied. Seemed like the thing to say, and it was true. He hadn’t had much food, outside of wine and the occasional grape. He’d had better wine and grapes were alright, on the best days. The squishy ones always left a sour taste in his mouth, anyway. Oysters sounded entirely different. And, as all demons should, Crowley was happy to try anything once.

“Oh—oh, well let me tempt you—” Aziraphale broke off in the same breath as Crowley suddenly shifted to look at him. “No, that’s your job, isn’t it?” He tried to laugh it off behind his cup, but Crowley was grinning.

The moment he’d met Aziraphale, he saw everything pompous and prim about Heaven. This was God’s favorite angel, a seat that had been so sorely taken from Crowley, once. When he’d been an angel. The story that burned in his back and behind his eyes, in the brand on his face. There had been nothing short of a burning hate in Crowley’s stomach at the very _sight_ of him. He’d made it his own personal goal, in those first moments on the ark, to steal what little Grace Aziraphale could surely have. To show God that She wouldn’t win, not even with Her new plump plaything. But that. That hadn’t been something Crowley expected. For an angel to offer to tempt _him_, and he was quite the king of temptation. His very own crown.

Aziraphale was supposed to be everything Heaven was. Good, pious, perfect. A bit of a stickler for the details, the important bits, and the things Crowley despised. But Crowley realized, all at once, that Aziraphale was nothing of the sort. _He_ wanted to tempt _Crowley_. He had come to Rome solely to taste oysters: food that he didn’t need, and his celestial body would surely be darkened for it. He was indulging, Crowley realized. He had indulged, once, as an angel. Several times. He’d made a career out of indulging. To the point where other angels despised his waking move and wondered why he hadn’t fallen for his crimes.

It was nice to know that God’s tastes hadn’t changed, not in all of time. She was just as bad as the rest. A hedonistic little something-something. Crowley took one look at Aziraphale and knew what he’d just found. Something—_someone—_that he liked. There was no time to regret anything he’d done, now, because they were going to eat oysters, together, and Crowley felt just a touch less evil for it.


	2. Act II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this one the turning point. There's some Lady Aziraphale in this chapter too, so of course, it's very near and dear to my heart. Watch as Crowley's heart not only melts but grows 3 sizes. It's kinda gay.
> 
> Do enjoy! comments/kudos appreciated <3

Ever always with the rain, it was. Ever raining in England, and it seemed to have been doing so since Crowley arrived some odd. Too long ago; he didn’t care to remember, and he didn’t care to care. Not for an ounce and not for a sixpence. Not at the moment, anyway, some several odd years between the only date in his mind and some date yet to find. Time was always a mid-point when Crowley didn’t know where he would go or what he would do. Assignments were less important than they had been at the beginning, when he’d ripped humanity’s chance at divine slavery right from under them. Really, they should thank him, but here a sat a demon in a late-night tavern without an ounce of dignity or respect in the world. That was just fine.

He’d learned, somewhere, that his temptations meant nothing in the way of actual souls when Aziraphale was flitting about and undoing everything with his petty little kind and good-like charm. Cancel each other out, they did. And they did it quite a lot more than Crowley had realized at the talk in armor or right now, halfway through a pint. He wasn’t quite smug enough to think Aziraphale would follow him, especially not after he’d been so thoroughly turned down. Always the white knight, that one, doing Her bidding just as She asked. Crowley could’ve vomited if he’d a stomach, which he did have but didn’t use.

Suppose it really didn’t matter, though, and Crowley took another drink. He wasn’t quite feeling up to caring for caring, as it were. And thinking just made everything worse. Something had mellowed out a bit, after the centuries had begun to turn. It wasn’t so much a deep-set hatred anymore as a burning prick in the back of his neck. A reminder, but all a bit vague and less pressing. He was starting to learn from his time on earth what that meant, and it was becoming something sour tasting like a consequence he hadn’t expected at the beginning of time and the beginning of man. Still, it had been fun. Crowley would never say he hadn’t had _fun._ Though he hated it and wished sorely that nothing had ever happened, not once.

Everything for one damned tree. Crowley thought it was an overreaction. With the tree and the humans and the him. God was good at that—overreacting. Always ended in someone getting hurt. Crowley hadn’t been the first to Fall, but he had been the most in pain. At least, in his own particular experience. A pain which he was quite sure on perpetuating as he soiled his body even further with earthly things like rum and cheese. There was music in the background, which he tapped his foot too, but other than that. There was nothing ado but drink and eat, then drink some more. It was raining after all, as it did, so he wouldn’t be leaving for some time, either.

But of course, that meant more patrons would stop in the tavern to do away with the weather. But of course, one of those patrons was heavy out of breath and sitting himself downright next to the empty seat beside Crowley. Crowley had sat purposefully at the bar and against a wall, to prevent people from sitting near him. This one hadn’t gotten the hint, it seemed, and this one smelt sorely of pears and old books that hadn’t ever had the dust cleaned from them. Mostly like dust, then, but Crowley’s tongue did dip out to confirm. He sniffed.

“Crowley—”

“What do you want?” Crowley droned.

“Well, I,” Aziraphale shifted in his seat. “To say hello, I suppose. I hadn’t thought to find you here.”

Crowley turned in his chair and raised his eyebrow. “You clearly did. You could have not more obviously thought to find me here—you’re sitting right next to me.”

“I suppose I am. Fancy that.” Aziraphale smiled. He was entirely put together in the wake of Crowley’s snap. He was certainly made of sturdier stuff than he looked, and Crowley couldn’t help but be a bit _impressed._

“What do you want?” Crowley repeated, less angry about it. He sipped on his pint and waited for Aziraphale to order something.

As it turned out, Aziraphale had been doing some thinking. A lot of it in, the short amount of years since they’d seen each other, but the last time had been squarely about how much extra work they were doing for not a lot of reward, at all. Crowley hadn’t expected anything to come of it; Aziraphale was too good and too full of Heaven to stoop so low to a demon’s bidding. But Aziraphale was sitting beside him eating some sort of shepherd’s pie. Why he’d come, Crowley would have to wait until Aziraphale told him. As for everything else, well, Crowley didn’t really want to hear on about it. He wanted to finish his drink and find a warm bed to sleep in. Maybe a human to share it with.

“It might have taken me longer than necessary to come around to it, but I do quite agree, you know. That we’re both doing quite a lot of work for nothing,” but Aziraphale wouldn’t look up from his bowl. Something about his comments ashamed him, but what, Crowley couldn’t place. He assumed it had something to do with coming down to a darker level. There was no way for Crowley to go up, so Aziraphale would have to come down. And that was a risk. It took him farther away from Her, and She surely loved him better.

“That we are,” Crowley still replied. “Lot of work for a lot of nothing. What of it?”

“Well, I thought, well. Maybe, that you might like to do something about this? With me, I mean.” Aziraphale was suddenly looking at him. Crowley saw the red in his face and raised a pointed brow.

“Seems a waste of time, as you said. And—and really, maybe they won’t check, so long as the paperwork is there, I mean.”

“They won’t,” and Crowley spoke with some authority on the matter. Like he’d been there. Like he’d done that. Aziraphale didn’t seem to catch the tone, because he kept talking.

“And, well, there has to be a better way to do what we’re doing. It seems absurd that we get sent to the same places so often, but I’m sure they don’t exactly check with each other, either. That’d be rather strange, don’t you think?”

“Indeed.” Crowley took another sip.

“So, maybe there’s something we can do. If by very good chance we have an assignment at the same place, maybe only one of us should go?”

“What are you suggesting, exactly?” Crowley knew what Aziraphale was suggesting. It’d been what he suggested but hearing Aziraphale _say it_ was such a sweet satisfaction to his ears that it hurt. Everything was made better for it, too, because it meant Aziraphale was coming around. If it was Aziraphale’s idea, it meant he was comfortable with it. That gave a bit of relief, somewhere, in the pit of Crowley’s stomach where he pretended he didn’t feel it. Tempting was his lot. It was what he _did._

“That we just. Do each other’s work?” Aziraphale winced. “The tempting and the good, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe we skip it all together for lunch.”

_That_ sounded like a temptation Crowley could do, but he wasn’t about to jump that far in the deep end immediately. He would make the both of them wait for what sounded quite as close to paradise as they were allowed to have, anymore. But Crowley didn’t indulge in things like paradise and kindness. He much preferred a vice or two like Lust and Wrath. He was certainly feeling one way or the other, watching Aziraphale stumble over his words and try to formulate a plan properly.

“You’re suggesting that, say, we both needed to make a run to Brussels, you would stoop so low as to _tempt_?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said with a sudden bravado. “Yes, that is what I’m saying. Do you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that. I did not say that,” Crowley mused. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.” He suggested it, after all, but best not to mention things like that. He might scare Aziraphale off, and that was the farthest thing from his mind at that moment, watching him. Aziraphale was humming to himself and trying to quietly contain every pleased little wiggle with every bite that he took.

Crowley didn’t know much about Aziraphale, other than his angelic thing, but he did know that Aziraphale liked to eat. And he preferred places like this, that were hidden and out of the way. They always had something going on in the kitchen, secret and _good._ He wore his pleasure and his heart on his sleeve; the glances were nothing short to speak of. And Crowley did not speak of them. He did smile, though, and threw forth another few coins to get him something to drink. Aziraphale accepted it graciously and grinned.

“So, perhaps next time? Or were you in town for a temptation?”

“Just passing through. What about you?”

“Oh, there’s this traveling entertainment group that I’ve stopped by to see. You’d really love them, I’m sure of it.”

Love. A funny word to use about a demon, but Crowley didn’t press, and he didn’t question. He listened, instead, as Aziraphale raved on about a certain fiddle player who had really outdone himself at the last performance Aziraphale had seen, earlier that day. Before the rain had started. He’d been hoping to return the following day if the rain gave up, and now he was quite inviting Crowley to come along with him. Not that Crowley was against the musical arts; they were quite devious. It was that he was rather caught up on an invitation to go somewhere with someone who was positively nowhere close to anyone he had ever chosen to spend time with before. Aziraphale was nothing he had expected. It gave him pause. It gave him an intrigue. He watched Aziraphale a bit longer.

There was room for something more when he’d finished his meal, but the tavern wasn’t exactly well stalked on sweet treats. Aziraphale opted for another drink, instead, on Crowley’s coin. Crowley shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. There was nothing _evil_ about buying drinks for an angel, even if it could _lead_ to something evil. Crowley hadn’t quite found himself above taking advantage, though he was finding out what his presence in the world was doing. Even if the implications meant he could do it to Aziraphale, too, that was fine. He suspected, rather, that Aziraphale was doing himself. No power on earth could make someone drink something they didn’t want to, given the stamina, and Aziraphale had that covered on every aspect.

“Should we do something about this agreement then?” Aziraphale wondered.

Crowley hummed in response, finishing off the last of his rum and waving away the chance for another. He was finished.

“Maybe more of an arrangement, I suppose. Should we agree on it? Shake hands or whatever it is we should do.”

“Could seal an official pact,” Crowley said with magic on his fingers.

“Oh, no, I don’t—I don’t believe that’s necessary,” Aziraphale laughed nervously. He couldn’t quite shake a certain type of feeling, watching the way Crowley’s fingers lit up. He’d never seen an angel do that. Never seen a demon do it, either. There wasn’t time to ask, though, because Crowley was grinning at him from over the tips of his glasses.

“What do you suggest then, angel?”

_Angel._ On Crowley’s lips like the sweetest of wine, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but stare. There was no malice in it, just the soft sort of rumble of an ocean wave that did more than it spoke, right in the very space around them. Crowley watched with predatory eyes as Aziraphale gulped, followed the bob of his adam’s apple before looking back to his eyes. Aziraphale was staring at him, wide-eyed and red-faced. Oh, the dart of Crowley’s tongue over his lips. He couldn’t _contain_ himself. Aziraphale looked good enough to _eat._

But. Crowley turned back towards the counter and mussed about with his pint mug. Aziraphale would have to initiate that; the wounds had dug a bit farther in all the time Crowley had had to think. He’d treated Aziraphale so cruelly on that ark, it seemed a horrid thing to wish and hope to touch him like that again. Not like that, no. The touches might be all the same, but this would be a different motive. Even Crowley had to admit to himself that he did not hate Aziraphale anymore. He didn’t _like_ him, no. He would never _like _anything that Heaven had to offer, not as long as he drew breath he didn’t need to breathe. But Aziraphale interested him at the very least. Intrigued him, even. To the point where he’d already learned his smell and counted on his pretty little glances.

“Well, I haven’t a place to stay tonight,” Aziraphale mumbled. “And with the rain, you know. Perhaps I could impose on you? If you have a place to stay, that is. I wouldn’t—”

“I have a room upstairs,” Crowley said. “I’ve been here for hours, angel.”

“Is—is that a yes?”

“If you like,” Crowley said. Aziraphale beamed at him.

They drank, after that. To the arrangement, to each other, and to the blasted rain that it may stop eventually. When the drinks ran dry, and Aziraphale had eaten his third meal on Crowley’s coin, the time to retire had come. Even if it was more of a stumble up the stairs, Crowley led on just the way he did with Aziraphale’s hand in his, back to the room he’d rented for the night. There was always enough coin in his pocket for a splurge like this, especially when he could do as he liked with the room. A bit of magic here or there, and it was alight with a plush bed and beautiful decoration. As if either one of them were concerned with looking.

When Aziraphale initiated the kiss, Crowley didn’t have any reservations or fears. This wasn’t him tempting to something devious, this was him obliging an angel’s darkest wants. In some way, it was the same. They hadn’t even made it to the bed before they were panting against each other, and Crowley was hoisting Aziraphale up the wall. He would take everything Aziraphale had to offer again and again, and he would think about what it _meant._ He would wonder if this was what God longed to do when She saw Aziraphale in his way, always so boisterous and _cute._ If She was jealous when Aziraphale’s head hit the wall with Crowley’s name on his lips, because it was all for Crowley. Crowley, Crowley, Crowley—and Crowley did _take._

It wasn’t about stealing grace this time or taking from God what She might have believed was rightfully hers. It was about feeling the give of Aziraphale’s skin under his fingers, about the sound of his voice as his jaw dripped open, and about the way he cried. Crowley licked at his tears, at his lips, until they were kissing again. They kept going, right where they were. As long as Aziraphale said yes, Crowley would oblige him. In his own devious way, he would oblige for as long and as long as Aziraphale wanted.

In the morning, with the rain gone and the sun shining unpleasantly through the window, they dressed in silence and did not look at each other until Crowley made his decision. He _would_ go to see the music, if Aziraphale still wanted to take him. He understood as well as any how the morning after could be, but neither of them had left. The room had quite returned to its normal, dingy state with a single bed and dusty table, but neither of them had left. They stared at each other in the middle of the room, just out of the way of the sun, while Crowley slipped his glasses back on over his eyes and waited.

“Alright,” Aziraphale smiled. “Shall you escort me, then?” and he left the room before Crowley could properly say anything, really. Crowley looked on after him and wondered just what he’d started. It couldn’t be all bad, with how happy Aziraphale looked. The only issue remained was that Aziraphale was the _only_ one happy. Crowley was just confused. A little unsure of what might come to follow other than the fiddle player and merriment he’d been promises.

More rain, he decided. There would always be more rain in his future. But the sun might shine behind it, somewhere, even if it shaped more like a halo. He followed after it, then, in the form of one very bright angel, and believing in something a bit different for a chance. If the past did not sit so sturdy on his shoulders, he might leave it all behind for the day. It followed, relentless, even as he followed. Like a dark cloud he couldn’t quite escape, something uncomfortable in the presence of everything before him. Aziraphale and what he meant, entirely. Crowley couldn’t place it. He couldn’t care to care much farther than it, either.

Later, for some time, Crowley disappeared. The fiddler had been everything Aziraphale promised, and the rain had not come, but Crowley vanished with the travelers and off on his own. He’d stayed with them for no more than a day before he kissed the fiddler goodbye and sauntered on his merry way. It had taken no less than the day for the flautist and the jester to start to fight, and Crowley was beginning to realize what his presence meant in the world. He didn’t have to tempt humans, because just being around them was temptation all in itself. While the work was easy, the work was boring. It might have been more fun to add in some goodness and angel work, but Crowley took some time off to himself. Not so much to see the beach or the mountains, and certainly no holiday, just away. From things that reminded him of things that reminded him of a past he’d tried to forget.

Forgetting was no worthy cause, and Crowley found he rather liked the alcohol in Russia, for one thing. The Russians maybe weren’t his people, but that was fine. Most people weren’t his people; it came with the territory of being a demon. Really, demons weren’t even his people. Demons weren’t anyone’s people, not even to one another. Hell was too cramped full of angry scowls for anyone to be anything to anybody. Crowley had never cared for the tight spaces and little room for breath. Most demons didn’t breathe, either, but Crowley wasn’t most demons. Crowley was Crowley, and even that was a bit off.

He was a bit off, but he never minded that much. There was magic on his fingers and fire in his veins, and really that’s all he needed. If he kept to himself, things went smoothly. He could stop from tavern to tavern for a drink and a bed, and sometimes even a friend. Mostly, though, Crowley traveled. For one moment and one moment alone, he met Aziraphale at the Globe Theater and was wildly surprised when he didn’t have to make another trip by horseback, but that was that. Crowley was on his own, on his feet, and moving. If he really wanted a big assignment, he could ask for it. Hell wasn’t particularly keen on forcing him to do anything too out of the ordinary, and if he could tempt just by walking through, well. That was a crown he could carry well in his new bones. The Source of Evil, they said. He heard it in the wind.

The wind carried a lot of thing, but better than all, it carried a tune. Somewhere along his lonely travels, Crowley had picked up a lute. It kept him company on the road, and often, it could find him company in the taverns. Which he was seeking a sore less amount of, though. Not that loneliness particularly suited him, though maybe it did. The lute just seemed a better partner than any human he’d come across. There weren’t many shared experiences he could have with a human, being centuries old as he was. But a lute was timeless, like the melodies and the winds that had been around since time began to spin. There were only so many notes, and they could only be played in so many ways. On so many hands and for so many ears. Finite, like all things were.

What didn’t seem to be finite were all the places Crowley could go and all the towns he could visit. There was an endless amount of sceneries to try and people to meet, and he reveled in it. Never to stay in one place too long, lest he truly see what humans could do, but he stayed just long enough for himself. He had quite and truly decided that he might set out to preserve something that God had sought to damn. Free will, She’d called it, and Crowley was beginning to enjoy it. It meant less work for him, after all, if people would choose their own discourages. Might they love each other, or might they kill each other was a question left to them, and Crowley found he preferred it that way. It made humans what they were, and it made Crowley love them all the more for it. Far better than the angels in Heaven had been, surely, and greater company than a demon. Crowley even dared to think he fit in, here, sauntering down the streets with his lute in his hand and a pack swung over his back. If he played his cards right, literally, he could rent a carriage for his next destination.

In the local tavern, Crowley sat himself down at a table he had sorely not been invited to. Nobody asked questions, though, because he looked a bloke with money. He had a fine, red coat with too many buttons to count, and his shoes were made of finely polished leather. It took less than a stare for him to be dealt into the next round, and this was one thing Crowley would use his wiles for. Winning. He liked it. Liked the way it weighed his pockets down with money he didn’t know, and it was certainly just another way at temptation. Humans were greedy on their own, but if he was sitting at the table with them, they might claw their eyes out to get another chance at even a denier.

“A round of whatever you think is drinkable,” Crowley said when a lovely little waitress pondered over with a dress all too low but too long. He gestured out to the table, and none of them seemed put out by the worthy gesture. It was certainly a play of coin, but one that benefited them all. Equally.

“Right away,” she replied and hurried off. She took count of the heads first, to ensure she didn’t get it wrong, but she would still bring two for Crowley. Because that’s what he wanted.

Crowley didn’t deal when he played cards. It was too easy for the others to assume he was cheating with or without evidence. Of course, to the contrary, he was always cheating with a wave of his hand or snap of his fingers like he meant to gather attention. That particular move was always followed up with something important to say, and he was getting rather good at it. The thing about cheating, though, was that too often a winning hand would bring eyes to him no matter what he did. Which meant he cheated both ways. To win and to lose, but never the final game. The final round was always his, and the winner would take all.

The waitress brought them their round and seemed overly apologetic at the extra one, but Crowley took it graciously. With an insistence that he had the coin to pay, she left them to their game. Crowley took up his hand with a slight bit of spark on his fingertips and kept his smile quite to himself at the cards he’d landed. This would be a fun game, and this particular gathering of men looked quite ready to spill their purses for him. He need only bide his time and keep them entertain with drinks and food long enough for it to seem natural. Demon he may be, he didn’t generally require more attention than necessary, and no attention was absolutely necessary.

Lest that attention bring him wine, coin, or merriment, anyway.

This particular game was going swimmingly, and Crowley had lost nearly just as many hands as he’d won. However, they were coming to the final draw, and Crowley had his eyes on the pile of gold building between them. Yes, he’d be able to rent himself quite the ride to his next stop. Even if France was a ridden hole of revolution and bloodshed, Crowley still thought he rather deserved to ride in style. And, apart from the revolution and bloodshed, there were little places like this where civilization was still quite in tow. Full of old men and women who hadn’t fled but certainly weren’t fit to join the fight. Much less the beheading that Crowley heard was happening. Quite an invention, that was. Humans, all on their own. He smiled at the notion as he switched two cards.

Only. Something was right. Something smelt more of distress than the entire air of France had ever quite deigned. Distress wasn’t quite the word, but the smell was sour and not to be drowned away by rum and cards. And it bothered him. It poked at every inch and crook Crowley had on his body and seemed to _beg._ For his attention. His hand. His _something_. Always something. Always—always with an angel. A thought, only briefly, to leave the feeling and return to the card game passed. He’d put up quite a lot of coin, though it wasn’t to say he couldn’t snap his fingers and have it all back later. Coin was replaceable. Aziraphale, as Crowley was learning, was not. He hadn’t seen Aziraphale in a long bit of time he couldn’t place and thinking to see him again with the nose of distress certainly put him in a mood of sorts. Not good or bad just. Pleased.

“Sorry, gentlemen,” Crowley was dropping his cards and standing. “Got a bad hand this time around. Think I’ll fold and be on my way.”

“Oi, you really just gonna skip like that?” one of the men asked.

“Apologies. Perhaps, I’ll see you around,” and he did a slight bow before walking off to the counter. He’d left his lute and his pack, but it was all replaceable.

After he’d paid the tab and stepped into the street, he let himself breathe. He was annoyed ever in his pleasure for the moment. Aziraphale, given the _smell_, had to be in some sort of trouble. What a way to meet again, a daring rescue. Crowley enjoyed the thought, and he ever snapped his fingers for appearance _willingly._ Saving an angel should have never been on his mind, but who was he to stop himself? Surely, someone of power, but that meant equally he outranked his own opinions and should, most assuredly, rescue an angel. Quite all the hastier for it than he needed to be, too, for the crowd. He walked right through and snapped his fingers. Gone. Just like that, and—

“Animals don't kill each other with clever machines, angel. Only humans do that,” and he spoke with authority on the matter. He’d seen it before.

Aziraphale sounded far more pleased with himself than he had any right to be. Crowley might have even dared to think Aziraphale was _excited_ to see him. Like he’d planned the whole thing, and Crowley had walked right into his demon-trap. A thought that sent a bit of a shiver through his chest, but that was neither here nor there nor anywhere. Because Aziraphale had the audacity to take one look at him and judge his whole outfit, as if he was one to judge dressed up like an English frump in the middle of a revolution.

“What the deuce are you doing locked up in the Bastille? I thought you were opening a book shop.”

A comment that, given the man who said it, was not so much odd as it was endearing. They hadn’t really talked since the Globe Theater and Edinburgh. Somehow, though, Crowley knew exactly what Aziraphale had been up to. Something about a bookshop in London, though he hadn’t been keeping too close for tabs. That would have made it odd again, less endearing. Crowley wasn’t particularly trying to be endearing, but there was a hard press to deny his interest in Aziraphale. All things considered, anyway. From the wall to the Bastille, where they were. There was a lot to think and a lot to know about him, and Crowley was having fun savoring it like fine wine. Slowly and with tongue.

“I got peckish,” Aziraphale replied, and Crowley groaned. Of course, he had. How troublesome.

Crowley had learned about the food thing ages ago. It wasn’t quite so exciting anymore, though he did enjoy it. Knowing that Aziraphale would risk life and limb for crepes and brioche. Laughable, really, if Crowley couldn’t smell the underlying reason behind it. All of it sounded like excuses. No more miracles lest he face a strongly worded letter. Crowley didn’t understand that. He didn’t _get_ it. He wanted to. Almost just as bad as he wanted to understand Aziraphale, and that’s what had led him to here. To answer what was most assuredly a call for help and a plea for a knight. Ridiculous. Crowley was better than this, but he was entertaining it regardless of self and betterment and whatever he would choose to spew at himself when this is over.

“My lot sent me a commendation for outstanding job performance.” Crowley had been celebrating and escaping all at once. Though, he’d only just then realized he’d lost his lute. So much for a true celebration.

“So, this is all your demonic work?!” Aziraphale jumped to accusations. To cover the smell, Crowley assumed.

“No! The humans thought it up themselves. Nothing to do with me,” Crowley insisted right back. Maybe it had something to do with him. Just his general existing near anything and everything with a will to choose, but he was beginning to believe that less and less. It was more or less a consequence, rather, of something he’d done a long time before.

Instead, he was here trying to make amends while he rescued an angel. Crowley, for one, had never imagined he’d find himself in this position. Freeing Aziraphale from cuffs he could have sorely freed himself from. Still, Aziraphale smiled. Thought to thank him, even, in an ineffable sort of kindness and sincerity. Crowley had standards, and _that_ was decidedly against them all. If word got around that he’d been rescuing an angel, he would be in a Hell’s proportion of trouble. Best nobody knew. Best _he_ didn’t even know.

Then, Crowley barely managed to keep a snicker to himself. He watched Aziraphale miracle himself up a new bit of clothes, swapped with the man frozen to the side. The man of which Aziraphale had made no comment on, and Crowley found that just as strange as the rest of it. It wasn’t a normal demon trait to stop time or man. Best of luck to say that Aziraphale just didn’t realize this, but Crowley had once been an angel. This was no normal Angel trait, either. That, Aziraphale had to know. Not that it mattered, because the sudden miracle only proved to bolster Crowley’s assumption. This had been some worthy scheme to catch his eye, and he’d fallen right into it. Another Fall to his books, Crowley grinned, and he’d let it go on for too long.

Nothing quite a bit longer would matter for how long he’d already been around. Aziraphale was offering him _crepes_, and what a marvel. What a thought. Crowley hadn’t ever had crepes. He hadn’t had a lot of cuisine, but if Aziraphale was offering to treat him, he would do the proper thing and accept the ride along. The ride was more or less walking on foot, but that was fine. Crowley was used to it, and it prevented yet another miracle to spot up Aziraphale’s obviously very clean and tidy record. Walk or not, Crowley enjoyed it. He enjoyed the proximity, and he even let himself admit to it.

The crepes were good, as well. Better than good, because he’d only had one bite, and Aziraphale had been the one to feed it to him. The shop was fine too, a quiet little place that was far different than any tavern Crowley ever visited. It didn’t just seem to be that Aziraphale enjoyed food, but he enjoyed finer things. The fancy dress, the expensive atmosphere. He was the very picture of hedonism, and Crowley grinned at him. Several centuries earlier, he would have liked it for the deep embedded sin of it. To think that he’d gotten through and tempted an angel from God’s Grace, that would have done nothing more than turn him all the right ways. It wasn’t that, though. It was a genuine sort of cherished grin. Aziraphale was living his life on earth quite happily, fully. Wonderfully.

“You know,” Aziraphale said between bites, “perhaps you could stop by the bookshop sometime. Once it’s opened, anyway.”

“Course,” Crowley shrugged. “Don’t see why I couldn’t. You know when your doors will finally open?”

“Well, I do hope quite soon. It’s been a long time coming, I think.”

“Indeed. I’ll happily pop over. I haven’t been in London for a tick. It is London, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Soho, in fact. I hear the area used to be an old red-light district,” Aziraphale laughed.

Crowley snorted, but he covered it smoothly by drinking from his glass. That would have been a sight to see, Aziraphale still included.

“You’ll stop by, then?”

Crowley nodded, “I will. I’ll be there the moment I hear it opens, angel. Opening day, even.”

Aziraphale couldn’t even bare to hide his smile, at that. What a thought, that Crowley could come to visit him on such an important day. Shared of crepes, no less, which were quickly becoming Aziraphale’s favorite food. Crowley could only assume such, the way that he ate the thing with such vigor. Faster than Crowley remembered he would eat, but the groaning and the wiggling was all the same. That was a sight Crowley could get used to, and fast, and for all the reasons that he shouldn’t have. Not very demon of him, but he’d never been much a demon in the first place. And certainly not an angel. Perhaps it was just as acceptable a thought to push that onto Aziraphale, who seemed just as wrapped up in worldly pleasures as any human.

It was what led him, exactly seven years later, to a particular kind of shop at the edge of town. He’d already procured overpriced flowers from a girl with dark hair who reminded him too much of times past and worse things. But this. This seemed quite up Aziraphale’s ally. The flowers were appropriate and expected. It was what one did when greeting someone for a milestone. A bookshop was a milestone if he’d ever heard one, so Crowley had bought flowers. But this was _chocolates_, and they looked rather fine as chocolates went. Crowley had never had one, but he wouldn’t mind to try if he could share them with Aziraphale over a nice glass of Chardonnay. If that went well with chocolate, anyway. He didn’t know.

Still, he picked up the largest package he could carry with a bouquet in his hands and stepped up to the counter to pay. The shop itself was rather lovely, and it smelled quite fantastic. Good smells were one of those things that Crowley wished he was more familiar with, but Hell didn’t smell good. Neither did wayward taverns in between towns, and that’s where Crowley had been for the last seven years. He’d found his lute and lost it again, as he did, and then just kept traveling until he’d wound up in London. This time, he rather did think he would stay, chocolates and all.

“Visiting a lady friend, are we?” the shop clerk asked.

Crowley grinned, “something like that,” and it felt alright to admit.

That didn’t stop his face from positively falling when he approached the shop, though. There was still a sign painter out front working on the name above the door, but Crowley could see past him clearly into the window. Aziraphale was. Well, Aziraphale was everything. Crowley had never seen him like this before, not with ringlet hair down to his, well. Crowley would have coughed if they were in company and not separated by window and _people._ Crowley would very much like to not be separated, though. If at all possible. Aziraphale looked like a woman, a long beige dress to the floor and done up with a vest that very nicely accented what an ample bosom he’d given himself. Crowley did cough, then.

“Chocolates,” he mouthed, like that would prompt Aziraphale away from whatever. He knew who they were, though, those standing just in the way of Aziraphale. Gabriel and Sandalphon. And then one of them had to go and say Michael, and it was like Crowley was reliving all of his worst past.

“Michael? Michael’s a wanker!” he could have been shouting, but that wouldn’t have been a bright idea. The streets of London were busy.

He had to get away from this. He knew what they were planning, and he couldn’t help but think God had something to do with it. She’d looked down and saw just how enamored he was becoming. She’d watched his feelings slowly change from spite and cunning to a gentle sort of thing that only a demon left on earth to his own wiles could feel. It wasn’t fair. Crowley could deal with a few things, but he wasn’t about to let God take back Aziraphale. If She wanted Her favorite back, She was going to have to work harder than sending two pricks in suits down to collect him. Crowley was going to make sure of that, himself.

The chocolates and the flowers ended up in the garbage on his way down the street. If he walked fast enough, he could beat them to the tailor just in time to spread a few lies. He hadn’t kept up on his acting over the years, but there was time well enough to learn again. Anything to keep this from happening, even if he was ten seconds short of making an absolute fool of himself. He hoped God was watching when he contorted his own voice into a monster’s. They didn’t call him a magician for nothing, and with the right wave of his hand in fiery red magic on the tips of his fingers, he knew Gabriel would hear him through the walls.

None of it was particularly true, either. He was a demon. Lying was what he _did._ Maybe Aziraphale hadn’t been thwarting him at every turn, but it wasn’t like he was doing anything that needed thwarted, either. They could play their games and tiptoe around each other all they liked, but they weren’t quite the same as they might have been had Aziraphale been anyone else, at all. This was necessary. To keep Aziraphale as he was. Crowley had a thought for himself about it too, to keep Aziraphale close so he could continue to seek out these warm things he was only starting to admit to and understand. There was something lighter behind it, the lies. Aziraphale had looked so uncomfortable just now, and Crowley had heard him talk about Heaven and the angels before. Maybe even more, Crowley _knew_ what it was like. He knew the words they said and the things they did. He knew what it meant.

He’d keep Aziraphale from that, if he could. If it was all the magic left in his fingers, he would keep Aziraphale away. He hoped God was watching.

When it was over, that was it. Crowley was mad, and he didn’t stick around to see the results of his work. He knew it would be enough, because Gabriel had never been entirely bright outside of a book. Crowley had always had him outdone in that department. All it meant was that he was no longer in the mood for shops and flowers and chocolates, which subsequently meant no Aziraphale. An unfortunate trade, but he was sure in his current mood, Aziraphale wouldn’t much like him anyway. He left. He walked down the alley way and kicked a stray crumbled newspaper before continuing down the street.

There was a dive somewhere down the street that Crowley had frequented once or twice. One of those out of the way places were the less and lesser fortunate went to get a drink. That was very much along the lines of how Crowley felt, so it seemed a suitable place to sulk for the rest of the century. He might even have a thought or two to sleep through it, if necessary. He had a place to stay for however long he wanted to stay there. My, what a thought it was.

So, he drank. And after he’d drank, he went to as much a home as he would ever have—a place to stay. And once he’d arrived, he stripped down as he walked through the hall and to his room. There, on the bed, was a lovely set of black silk pajamas that he was sure he would have for the rest of his life. He dressed in those, threw back a glass of bathroom tap water, and crawled into bed. He knew, on some deeper level, that this was an absolutely ridiculous thing to do. There was no reason that he should lay down to sleep like this for as long as he should think to do so, and all because of one little spat. He should have cooled down and gone back through the shops to buy another bouquet and the second biggest box of chocolates.

He didn’t, though. He closed his eyes and nestled down into the biggest pile of pillows he could manage. One more bit of magic, then, in drips of red along his nails that he might dream a pretty dream and wake, eventually, feeling much less distressed about the general way of things. Demons didn’t tend to dream, even when they slept as often as Crowley did, but Crowley had a talent for making things do what he wanted. That included certain things about his own head, of which emotions were not included, and he sorely wished they were.

For the next years, Crowley dreamed soothingly of things he missed, of pleasant things. He remembered Amaranthine, firstly, and she took up the first fifteen years of the dream. The years that she’d missed. The years she deserved. After that, the dreams drifted slowly to Aziraphale. To the words on his lips, the smiles there. The time they had shared together, the possibilities of it. Where it might have led if Crowley had walked a different path. If Crowley had been anything other than he was, and it was an impossibility. He was as he was because God made him that way, and She would never let him forget it. She would punish him for the rest of his days in reminder of her own fault. What a cruel thing to be blamed for being nothing more than he was, and he had once been Her favorite. He’d been everything to Her. He remembered well in shouts and dreams. They would sit together, the two of them. He would say something, and She would laugh. God would laugh at his comments and look every so endeared by him. But it had been so conditional.

As long as he nodded and smiled when She did something, he could stay at her side. She had crafted something, once, sick enough to make Crowley wince. But he didn’t ask. He watched as she crafted it and went on his way, later, to mull it on. He’d dipped his own fingers into, too, after that. It was clearly something She liked. The darkness in things made by hands. She had made Crowley’s hands, before his name was Crowley. Before his name was Crawly. She’d put evil into them, too.

There was a shout that broke the thought. A shattering shout that had Crowley stirring from a sleep he’d been quite pleased to keep. But not something real. Not something he could hear when he woke up, but there was panic right along with it in droves and waves. His whole body was covered with it when he scrambled from the bed, catching for breath caught in his throat like silent screams. Screams of another came through his ears, as the dream dissipated from his mind and he lurched for something to wear. What were the humans wearing now? Was there time to look outside?

He snapped his fingers for a miracle of proper dress and again, to follow the sound of hurt. It only made sense where he landed. With roses and dark colors, people lined up wearing black and hats and veils. Crowley had seen this once before, in human form. A funeral. The irony slapped him hard, that he would dream his last year to mourn his own Fall, and this is what he wakes to. The cries and shouts of a silent funeral. But why was he here? He’d _heard_ a call. So specific and so destined for him that it had dragged him out of a slumber he’d meant to last forever. Forever was a long time, though, and he realized all at once what had been so strong to pull him away from that. A different kind of forever with white hair and—_tears._

“Aziraphale,” Crowley went to her immediately, when she turned and saw him.

“Oh—Crowley, you,” but she couldn’t finish. There were tears streaming down her face, and she fell into him a moment after he’d realized. A beat passed. A moment. Crowley wound his arms around her shoulders.

He looked around and noticed all at once. Eventually, he would ask, but this was a funeral. It wasn’t appropriate for the time. Aziraphale was sobbing into his chest, and that meant that this had hit particularly hard. Another miracle, another wave of his hand and the years he’d missed came pouring back. Jane Austen. Her name was Jane Austen, and she’d died at the young age for forty-one. She’d written books. If Crowley knew one thing it was that Aziraphale loved books. And she must have loved Jane Austen.

“You came,” Aziraphale finally made out.

“Of course, I did, angel,” he said, holding her only tighter. “Of course, I did.”

There wasn’t much of a crowd, but the crowd that came was important. People Jane knew and loved and cared about; people who knew and loved and cared about Jane. Aziraphale was no different, and she sobbed harder into Crowley’s chest as he enveloped her, kept her close and safe with his chin on her head. She was short, like this, and maybe it was on purpose, or maybe it was Crowley’s shoes. It didn’t matter. She fit right up against him in a way that Crowley had never thought possible, and he wanted, in that moment, to make it all okay again. What a feat it would be for Jane Austen to rise from the dead. A miracle like that hadn’t been performed since Lazarus. Since Jesus.

Crowley couldn’t do that to these people. They deserved their time to mourn and time to find hope and faith in each other again. Aziraphale had sought to find it in Crowley and had called for him. She’d meant to, too, which was the part that scared Crowley. Aziraphale had meant to shout so loud that it would permeate into Crowley’s very dreams. It had. It still rung in his head, batting between all sides and coming back to rest at the pit of his throat where he swallowed.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” Crowley said. “It’s not good for you.”

“But I haven’t—” Aziraphale tried to push back, but Crowley kept his hands tight around her arms. “I haven’t paid my respects,” she said, quieter.

“Would you rather I go with you? Or should I wait?”

There was a moment of pause where Crowley realized he’d said something out of the ordinary. He’d asked for preferences, where before, he had quite simply done what he liked with Aziraphale. For her, to her, whatever the situation be. But he’d asked this time and quite listened when the answer came that he stayed at the edge of the crowd. He watched Aziraphale toddle up to the coffin, and the look on her face pulled a tight string in Crowley’s chest. A look, just a look, was all it took for Crowley to know that he’d been right. Aziraphale had loved Jane Austen. And only left, then, a wonderment of why. Why her? Why Jane? All inappropriate and wiped from the mind when Aziraphale returned. She’d left a flower in the coffin, miracled from air and a bright red. Then, Aziraphale returned.

“Let’s go to the shop,” Crowley said. “I haven’t gotten to see it.”

Aziraphale winced at the comment, but she didn’t refuse the invitation. Crowley didn’t know exactly where they were, though it looked nothing like London. A miracle was a miracle, and their location didn’t matter. After a wave of red magic, they were standing in the bookshop. Crowley didn’t spare a second to look at it, and instead sat Aziraphale down on what looked a plump and cozy sofa. Whatever it looked like, the shop felt warm and homey. It seemed like old books and pears, and everything Aziraphale liked and loved. Crowley felt invited. Felt home. But in the moment, he hadn’t even had time to pull away before Aziraphale had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in.

Just an inch before they kissed, Crowley slipped his finger over her lips and shook his head. Aziraphale froze where she was, but she didn’t press farther. She let her hands slip down into Crowley’s, where he folded them gently together and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Then, he placed her hands in her lap and covered them in his own. Their eyes met a moment later, and Aziraphale was crying again. Like she didn’t understand what Crowley had done. Why Crowley would refuse when he’d been nothing but receptive in the past.

“Hush, angel,” he whispered. “You’re in mourning; that wouldn’t be very appropriate. Allow me to make you tea?”

Aziraphale softened, barely smiled, and nodded. “There’s a kitchenette in the back,” she pointed and made no move. Crowley reached around her to the back of the sofa, where an afghan was folded nicely. He pulled it down and draped it over Aziraphale’s lap before disappearing off to the back.

As he passed through the shop, he took a time to look through it. He could sense something hiding beneath the floorboards, something holy and not for him, but the rest of the shop felt pleasant. It felt like a place he might like to linger and seep evil into the wood, make it home. The books were all organized, all of them old, and even if the place was a bit of a mess, Crowley had no trouble walking through. The kitchenette was cute, stored in the back, and just big enough for Crowley to brew a pot of tea. Of which he poured into an angel winged mug and returned to the room, where Aziraphale had toed off her shoes and hoisted up her skirts to make herself comfortable on the sofa. Crowley smiled.

“Tea for you,” Crowley said. Aziraphale took it and straightened up.

“Thank you,” she took a sip.

“So,” Crowley pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards, his legs around the back of the chair while he faced Aziraphale. “Her name was Jane Austen?”

“Crowley, please.”

“I hear talking about things helps. If you’d like me to shut up, though. Just tell me, angel.”

There was a long pause between them where Aziraphale sipped her tea and glanced around the bookshop, anywhere but Crowley. Until she finally stared right at him, where his glasses were hanging down the edge of his nose, and his eyes were right there. Big and golden and all for her. Aziraphale gulped.

“You weren’t there,” Aziraphale whispered. “You weren’t there, and she was. And I—I loved her.”

Crowley couldn’t form words in response.

“She was so impressed that I’d managed a shop all on my own. Women can’t even, well,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I suppose you’ve been asleep, then?” Crowley didn’t answer. “This shop technically shouldn’t _be_ mine, the way I look. She was impressed that I’d done it and done it all on my own. Then, I find she writes books. They were such lovely stories, Crowley, I hope—” a fresh new line of tears fell over as Aziraphale choked on her own tears.

“I hope the world reads them one day,” she finished. “I hope everyone gets to understand her—she was so lovely.”

“I’m sure they will,” Crowley said, and he knew they would. Even if he had to pour his hands into it for it to happen, he’d ensure that all of Jane Austen’s works made it through the ages, with Aziraphale.

“Would you read them?”

“I don’t read, but I’d make an exception, I think. If you’d like me to take a peek.”

Aziraphale smiled behind the tears and wiped at her eye. “I would. I think we could read them together, even. If you’d like.”

“I’d like that very much. Do you have any of her books?”

“Oh, yes! All signed, too. They’re manuscripts, but I think they serve the same purpose. She wrote this one, and oh, it’s my favorite, Crowley. It’s called Pride and Prejudice—she gave me the copy with all of her notes. Oh—” Aziraphale set her tea to the side and stood.

Suddenly, she seemed the happiest woman in London. She fluttered about the bookshop looking for that one particular thing she’d stored away, and when she found it, Crowley heard her exclamation from across the room. Then, she returned and sat down on the sofa. The blanket was back in her lap a second later, and she patted the seat beside her for Crowley to join. So, he did. He sauntered over and sat on the sofa, his arm around the back, around her, and he looked at the manuscript as Aziraphale pointed to notes and scribbles and little drawings. Jane seemed to have a penchant for flowers, which Crowley could appreciate. He listened intently when Aziraphale read certain passages or certain notes. For it all, Aziraphale even smiled. Crowley smiled, too.

When the manuscript had finished, the tea gone cold, and the sun gone down, Aziraphale folded the book back up and set it in her lap. Then, she looked at Crowley with a sadness he hadn’t seen in hours. Not since they’d begun with Pride and Prejudice. Crowley knew it would be a hit. He wouldn’t even have to lift a finger, but for this, he did. Right against Aziraphale’s cheek.

“Something wrong, angel?”

“You never came to visit. I mean, I saw you. I did. But you left, and I—I can’t help but wonder,” Aziraphale looked down when she said it. “Was it my form? Do you not—”

“Aziraphale, I—” Crowley realized he couldn’t say. He couldn’t _tell_ Aziraphale the only reason she hadn’t been sent back to Heaven was because he had thrown a ruckus in an alley way behind a tailor’s shop. “I meant to return. Something came up. Hell, you know, they’re not very polite at the best of times, and I’m—I’m sorry.”

Aziraphale looked taken aback by the comment. Crowley’s excuse had been piss poor at best, and he knew that. It was why he cut it off just to apologize. He knew this would come back to bite him, but he’d been in such a bad mood at the time. He feared, had he returned, Aziraphale wouldn’t have called on him now. This was much better. This was preferable.

“It’s nothing to do with your form or Gabriel. Not any of it. It was my mistake. I should have returned, and I didn’t.”

“I understand,” Aziraphale said. There was no forgiveness, though, and Crowley could not come to expect it. He couldn’t allow himself to get comfortable here. Not at all.

“I think,” she started again, suddenly pulling away and up to her feet, like she couldn’t get away from Crowley fast enough, “I’ll return to my normal form after this. I don’t know if I can bear this any longer. Not with her memory—not like this.”

“It suits you, angel,” Crowley told her from the couch, “but you should be whoever you want.”

Aziraphale stiffened. She didn’t _need_ approval from Crowley, and he knew it. He knew she wanted it, though, or she wouldn’t ask for it. She most definitely wanted the approval. To be cherished and appreciated. It all led back to his comment.

Crowley hadn’t been here. Jane had been.

In direct contrast, Crowley would be there. He was there, in the shop, when Aziraphale’s hair curled back up to his neck and he traded in skirts for slacks. Just long enough to slide his hands over Aziraphale’s cheek and tell him, once more, how sorry he was for the loss. It was the thing about humans; in their glory and cleverness and evil just as bad—they were finite. They would end, as most things did, where Aziraphale would not. Aziraphale was quite the first angel to ever make such a fuss of it. Crowley remembered, at the beginning; not a one of them had ever cared much for the lives of humans. Humans were inconsequential. Almost toys. Aziraphale wept for them, and he wept often.

He ate dinner often, too, Aziraphale. Crowley had taken to joining him some three years into this new little thing they did. It didn’t have a name, and Crowley thought that was best. They would visit the smallest little dives in London from time to time, where Aziraphale would order half the menu, and Crowley would have a drink. Food was one thing, drink was another, but it was in another world what they did. Patrons were supposed to talk to each other; at least, that’s what Crowley had observed when he deigned saunter into a restaurant or two. Aziraphale ate, Crowley drank, and they said nothing between them. When Crowley’s drink was gone three times over, he would lean forward and watch, but that was the closest they’d ever had to a conversation at a table.

The conversations always happened late-night, in the bookshop, over a glass of wine or two. After the bottle was gone and another opened, they talked. Oh, and they talked for hours about nothing they could remember, and everything. Everything at all once. The world, the people, the Heavens, and the Hells. Anything that they could think to talk about, and should the night go just as well, neither of them would sober up. Crowley always woke up on the couch the next morning with a silly little blanket draped over his chest. From there, he could see Aziraphale hard at work at his desk, and it stirred something. Always enough of a something that Crowley had no intentions of staying any longer than he had, and this time, he ran his fingers over Aziraphale’s shoulder in his quiet goodbye.

“Careful,” Aziraphale called out to him, “on your way, I mean. Don’t drive too fast, Crowley.”

Crowley smiled, but he did not respond.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk and certainly near let the door hit him in the dumb way he stood where he did; his eyes widened behind his glasses, and he meant to turn the opposite direction. There was nowhere he could go where that he wouldn’t be followed, not when he met the others’ eyes. He knew who it was immediately, and it was impossible not to. Some days, without proper sleep and mind, it was like looking through a mirror. The other side had a softer face, lighter hair, and walked with a bit of a limp. But they walked forward—stalked forward, really, with a predatory gaze that Crowley had seen on himself in so many instances. It carried far, he thought, and started to walk.

“See you’re looking well,” Crowley started talking the moment they walked together.

“No thanks to you,” the other sneered.

“What are you up to then, recently?”

“Recently? Or do you mean the past five thousand years?”

Crowley shrugged, “seems recent enough, five thousand years. I know about the first thousand. I think, anyway.”

The other sneered, “I’m a Prince of Hell now.”

“Oh! Oh, marvelous,” Crowley couldn’t even deign to clap. “Prince Asmodeus. That’s a good ring.”

Asmodeus. That was a name and a face Crowley remembered. One that he would have given anything to change, erase, or whatever it was people did when they didn’t particularly enjoy the consequences they faced. Crowley was a demon, and those options died out thousands of years ago. He moved on. He walked half a step faster than Asmodeus could keep up, but he continued to follow. Even if it meant Crowley had left the Bentley behind, he’d come back for it. This was certainly more enjoyable—to see just how long a Prince of Hell would follow him.

“Do I need to find a fish’s heart, or something?” Crowley called back over his shoulder. “Maybe you’ll get the hint and _leave.__”_

_“_Beelzebub herself sent me after you. Satan might have if it went on any longer.”

“If _what_ went on any longer? I know some of the stories what you got up to. They don’t send a _Demon of Lust_,” said with some hint of disdain and anger, “after someone unless they think lust’s involved.”

“And?”

Crowley stopped on an empty street corner and turned on his heel, hands in his pocket, and nearly glared at Asmodeus. Asmodeus was half an inch shorter with eyes just as yellow, just as cursed, but he seemed to stand twice as tall all at once. Crowley was angry, but he hadn’t half a care for the tiny whims of Hell. He’d always had a bigger plan, his own plan, and he intended to follow it through. Asmodeus had never been a part of it. Yet, there he was. Standing, glaring, a cute little cane in his hand like he would masquerade as some fine gentleman. It worked with the limp.

“No lust,” Crowley replied. “You really think I’m in there _lusting_ after an angel? Who do you think I am?”

“I think you’re low, that’s what I think,” Asmodeus spat back.

“Oh? Is that the new insult? Doesn’t get any _lower_ than Hell, darling,” and Crowley rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have lovers to slaughter? Temples to build? Legions to command—heard you had 72 of them last.” And Crowley turned to leave. He’d circle around the block, back to the shop, and get the Bentley. He would go somewhere and drink until he forgot about this. Even as he heard Asmodeus call behind him. What shock it was. Of course, Crowley knew. He knew the whole six-thousand-year story, but that was neither here nor there, because it didn’t matter. He’d been living in his own book, instead. He figured Asmodeus had one thing going for him: he looked nothing like the books described.

The serpent part, though. They had the right of it, there.

There had been a story written down and changed with time, about Asmodeus. One that Crowley knew better than the books that humans read, because he’d been the forefront of motivation, so to speak. If Asmodeus had written the story himself, the villain’s name would have been Crowley jumbled into who he used to be. Who he was trying hard not to be. But it was the name of every villain Asmodeus saw, and Crowley knew it better than the books. In the story the humans wrote, Asmodeus has slaughtered seven consecutive husbands of a young girl named Sarah, who was said to be the daughter of Raguel.

Crowley remembered Raguel too. Raguel had dark hair and darker skin and darker eyes, and she dealt with evil. All manner of evil things bowed to her, from spirits to deeds to sins, and she enacted Justice in the name of the Almighty. It only made sense that Asmodeus would be drawn to her, evil as he was, but less of her. In her daughter. The part of the story that the humans forgot, because how dastardly it would be if evil were good and good were evil. Asmodeus had seen Crowley in the wretched men what tried to bed her, and he had acted in the way only fit for a demon. But oh, the good behind it. He had saved Sarah seven times before the eighth had outdone him with his first discorporation.

For a time after hearing that, Crowley had blamed himself. Then, as he did with most things, even in remembrance, he shoved it to the back of his mind to think of something new, for a time. Carrying regret on his back for as long as he had wasn’t doing anything for him anymore, but in the first attempt he makes at moving forward in a step larger than life, Asmodeus is sent for him straight from hell to warn him away. Not that he would take any warnings, because he thought Hell’s plan was small, that Hell’s thinking was small. Much like Heaven’s, and oh how they were much the same. What it meant, now was that he would need something extra. He just had to think on what it would be. Over a nap, maybe. Or at least a bottle of wine.

The idea hit him some odd few years later, after a break on for temping and thwarting, whatever it was he was supposed to be doing. He’d been something large in the past, but in Hell, he scraped the bottom at the best of times. Which did well enough when it came to asking for a meeting, brief, in St. James’ Park. He couldn’t have another meet up, not like that. Hell had been generous by sending Asmodeus and not a demon who might be happy to sink their claws in Crowley’s neck. They wouldn’t do it again. The next demon sent after Crowley would be sent to drag him back down to the _depths_.

It led him to something that was more self-destructive than it needed to be, but he needed protection and someone to trust. The chances of this working out well died not minutes into the meeting, when Aziraphale had walked up and started feeding the ducks. He hadn’t seen Aziraphale in just a couple of years, with the nap he’d taken, but things still felt the same. Or they should have. They should have been the same, but Aziraphale felt the need to _distinguish_. Crowley didn’t need a daily reminder that he was a demon.

“I didn’t really fall,” he said, trying to hide the anger in the back of his throat, the venom. “I Just, you know, sauntered vaguely downwards.”

Aziraphale didn’t even seem to humor him in the comment. Too taken with his ducks and his bread and his hat. Crowley snorted.

“I need a favor.”

_That_ caught Aziraphale’s attention in the most indignant way possible, like Crowley had just asked for something outrageous. The agreement, again. But this was different.

“This is something else,” Crowley corrected, “for if it all goes pear-shaped.”

“I _like_ pears,” Aziraphale complained. His mind was elsewhere, and Crowley couldn’t help but wonder if he’d received a visit, too. Maybe just another strongly worded note.

“If it all goes wrong, I want insurance.”

Crowley didn’t want to explain. He didn’t want Aziraphale to know anything about him, nothing so important. Asmodeus would sour the air, and Aziraphale would ask questions—questions that Crowley was not ready to answer. He might never be ready to answer those, but he could answer Aziraphale’s first question.

“What?”

“I wrote it down. Walls have ears,” only, there weren’t walls. “Well, not walls. Trees have ears. Ducks have ears. Do ducks have ears?” he was stalling. He was holding the paper in his hand and thinking about all the ways this could go wrong—Aziraphale wouldn’t do it. Aziraphale didn’t _trust_ him. “Must do,” Crowley decided. “That’s how they hear other ducks,” and Aziraphale had the paper.

“Out of the question!”

“Why not?”

“It would destroy you!” Aziraphale pressed. He stamped his foot down for measure and. Crowley could see the hurt in his eyes. “I’m not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley.”

Crowley’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that response. The answer was still no, but for any other reason. He didn’t trust Crowley with it. He didn’t want to risk the trouble he would be in for handing Holy Water over so easily—but no. It was a worry so genuine that it creased up in Aziraphale’s brows like he was afraid of what Crowley would do once he had it. Not that Crowley really thought he’d given any indication that suicide was his answer, but it might have been. He hadn’t thought about it, but—no.

“That’s not what I want it for,” and he was telling the truth. “Just insurance.”

“I’m not an idiot, Crowley,” with the worry, but then. “Do you know what trouble I’d be in if they knew I’d been fraternizing? It’s completely out of the question!”

“Fraternizing?!” Crowley even hissed, sneered, snarled. It was _anger. _He’d let himself believe for all of a moment that Aziraphale was afraid for him—that Aziraphale had thought he was in such a place that he wanted Holy Water to _kill_ himself. But no. There was no friendship, care, or more. There was. Well, there was _that_. Fraternizing. Doing something outrageously against the rules, and Crowley was sure Aziraphale got off on it. That he was such a bad angel, _fraternizing_ with a demon.

“I do not think there’s any point in discussing it further.”

“I have lots of other people to _fraternize_ with, angel,” Crowley would discuss nothing farther. Nothing at all—Holy Water or not. He didn’t _need_ Aziraphale. Clearly, Aziraphale didn’t need him.

Why would he? Why would Aziraphale need Crowley—even if he’d had that reason, that _stupid_ reason, not to hand over Holy Water, it all made sense. Aziraphale was Aziraphale, an individual in every way. An angel, sure, but on the inside where it counted, Crowley had just watched him feed ducks for the fun of it. There was the bookshop, the clothes, the food, the interacting. On the outside, where it counted better, Aziraphale blended right into the humans like he was one of them. Crowley was evil. Crowley invented evil.

With that, Crowley went to sleep, after that, the second he’d returned home. He would have nothing more to do with this century. Nothing more to do with Aziraphale. Nothing more to do with it all, Hell help him.

In his dream, Crowley had grabbed Aziraphale by the neck and thrown him into the lake. He’d grown horns and scales and eyes had poked out in his skin—and he’d been _evil_. He’d been what he was without a body, without a _human_ thing keeping him in and contained. Even with the human thing, he could hardly keep himself contained. He was a snake. He was evil. He was—he was pulling Aziraphale out of the water with all the panic that a human would have and the strength of a demon.

Only, Aziraphale was smiling, with her long hair and skirts, and pulling him down like she’d done at the shop. This time, Crowley obliged. He kissed her so fully that he’d given into every temptation he’d ever played out. Back to the beginning. To where the first temptation he’d tried was _lust_, and Aziraphale wasn’t Aziraphale anymore. She had hair made of fire and eyes made of ice; skin like porcelain and nails like talons. She wasn’t Aziraphale. She would never be Aziraphale—and Crowley had wronged them _both_. What a thought as he tripped back into darkness. Pushed from his high place into the spiraling pit of nothing, nothing, nothing and sulfur. He remembered the smell.

She’d smelled like that, when he was done with her. Like sulfur and _wrong_. He’d left a mark on her—in her—that she would never be rid of, and he’d walked away. Oh, and he remembered the willow tree he’d left her under, the grass beneath their skin, and the robe draped across her waist. Crowley had thought himself _kind_, in a laughable way before he’d ever known a kindness. Kind was not the word, because that Crowley hadn’t known what it meant to be kind. He’d ruined her chance at life, at love, at grace. Yet, Aziraphale had been there days later with his wing and a kindness from the rain. The first kindness.

Aziraphale didn’t smell like sulfur, and Crowley felt quite damned to hope he ever would. He hadn’t hoped. No. He didn’t hope. He never wanted Aziraphale to fall from that high place, where he stood as God’s favorite like an angel tainted human. Because he was beautiful. Because he was everything. Because he smelled quite like water in the way that he was clean and untouched, and Crowley would only taint him, leave him ruined in a garden on fire and locked away. It was the best-case scenario, and still. Still. Crowley _breathed _for the chance.

When he pulled Aziraphale from the lake, and he looked all the same, as he did, in himself, Crowley stared at him. In this world, quiet and safe, Aziraphale stared back, and things were alright. Crowley wasn’t a cruel thing made of evil, for evil, to spread evil. All by a different name, then, but where it was safe in Aziraphale’s arms, he was Crowley. More human than demon, really, the way this Aziraphale looked at him. It was a dream, nothing more. The real Aziraphale would cast him out the first chance he had, because he was an angel. He was God’s favorite. There was reputation to uphold; one that Crowley remembered.

It was enough to wake him up.

He was in a new century, because time was always doing that turning thing he hated so much. He seemed to stay the same, but time passed on and so did people. So did fashion, plants, and food taste. Crowley just looked a bit out of whack, when he saw himself in the mirror. He needed a haircut, a shave, and a shower. None of which he was about to take, while he opted to just snap his fingers and fix it all. His wardrobe changed on top of it, too. When he returned to the bed, a three-piece suit was laid out for him. There was a hat, too, which he eyed strangely. If that’s what the miracle called for, that’s what the miracle called for. Crowley never cared overly much for the clothes he wore, just what he looked like. And he always looked good.

Once he’d dressed, he figured it was time to face the world he was living in. Find the news, learn about the world around him. Surely, somebody had died; at the very least, the year had changed, and he would like to know the time he was in. The rest would be in the news, underneath the date. But the newspapers were likely outside, not shoved under the door. There was, in fact, a pile of _something_ shoved underneath his door. Upon closer inspection, picking them up one by one in stacks, Crowley saw they were letters. All of them were simply addressed with his name, in beautiful scrawl, on the front of the envelope. Crowley knew that scrawl. It brought him to the ground, to sit cross-legged beside the pile of envelopes.

One day, he’d read them all. One day, he would memorize every word Aziraphale had left him, but he grabbed the one on top first. Inside, the scrawl was just as lovely with words that Crowley couldn’t quite place from an angel he didn’t quite know. He’d assumed the worst, because that’s what he did—he was a demon. Assuming the worst had always kept him pleasantly safe and intact. That wasn’t working anymore. Assuming the worst had put him right to sleep where Aziraphale had been left in a panic. The panic was left over it the words, ever calm as they’d been, and the date at the top read _1901_. Crowley gulped.

He gulped, and he read the letter, and he tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He’d read the rest of the letters eventually, but this one had left him tired all over again. Aziraphale’s words were kind, all at once and too much, yet not enough. Crowley longed to hear more of them, he realized. But he wasn’t sure if he was capable, with this feeling drawn up in him. Just another notch of failure. Aziraphale’s letter had been so bittersweet, yet a reminder that Crowley hadn’t been there. That there were so many times Crowley hadn’t been there.

A year late, Crowley learned. A year late to comfort Aziraphale in his time of need. He’d moved on, apparently, after the fight, after realizing that he wouldn’t hear from Crowley again. A man he called Oscar, and Crowley would refuse to learn the rest—but he was dead, now. Much in the manner of Jane, Crowley assumed. Only this time, Aziraphale hadn’t called for him. Not loud enough, not strong enough—or were it rather that Crowley hadn’t heard him. Aziraphale might have shouted for him to return, and Crowley had blocked it all away in favor for a _nightmare_. He’d woken up cold.

As much as he wanted to see Aziraphale immediately, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t bear to drag up that sort of darkness in Aziraphale’s life, leave him smelling if sulfur and _wrong._ He would go about his life as he did, away from London if he needed, and find what he would. What he found was his own nature come back to bite him, yet again, as it did. This time, it was in the form of a black hand that wrought the start of a war. When Crowley heard the news, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would paint the whole world black. It was the people’s choice. He’d only let them choose. And maybe the choice meant death, but humans seemed to like that choice. The way they scattered their own ashes and laid out their own remains. Nothing ever remained for long.

The war ended. Crowley still hadn’t seen Aziraphale.

1933 came around, and Crowley watched someone he recognized from a strange once in passing take to the stand of Germany and declare himself everything. Crowley had to admire a man who set out to do something and did it, but he didn’t have to like what it meant. He didn’t have to do anything about it, either, and he wouldn’t. Not because he particularly _liked_ it, as time went on, hearing about the things that happened. But because it was choice. It was a choice that the humans made, and he would not be a part of it. He wouldn’t sway them to do worse, and he could not sway them to do better. Not if he didn’t want Hell on his tails again; he rather enjoyed feeling alone on the earth. It meant no interfering.

The humans were cruel enough on their own. Hell would have their souls, Crowley would get his commendation, and all he had to do was make good for himself in the chaos. Maybe it wasn’t right or proper, but he was a demon: nothing right or proper about him. He was more than just a demon; he was every ounce of evil God Herself had once tried to cast out; clearly it hadn’t worked very well. In his spite, and in his anger, Crowley would go to lengths to preserve everything She thought was evil. The virtue of choice was a beautiful thing, he thought. It made humans humans; God’s own gift that made Her hate what She created.

Through and through, Crowley was a demon. He wouldn’t be actively telling anyone what to do with the weapons, but he would hand them out regardless. It’d set him up for the rest of his life, he thought, this name. Anthony J. Crowley—a weapon’s dealer. He’d met with a man who sounded just enough of a Soviet that Crowley could rightfully assume he wasn’t working for the new power, but it didn’t matter. He handed over the money, and Crowley pointed him to his crates. In the next days, it was two men each with Germany in the back of their throats. Crowley didn’t care where the money came from, just that the money _came._ And that neither side knew just exactly what was going on.

They wouldn’t so long as he was careful. He was _extremely_ careful and didn’t often show his face unless deals were important. This one was important. 1940 was an important year, apparently, and it would be the set for the future. That’s what he’d been told, anyway, when he’d received something like a summons, but far too secretive for that. They had to be sure they could _trust _Crowley, after all. At the end of the day, he only cared about the money. Humans would have their choice—they didn’t have to pay him; they didn’t have to use the weapons. If they did, he figured it was nothing on his conscious. More souls for Hell at the worst, perhaps. To which was not so bad for him as it was for Upstairs, and Crowley didn’t care about Upstairs anymore.

He sat in the chair, his feet propped up on the desk, without a tinge of regret. He wouldn’t actually be meeting with Adolf Hitler, and that was probably for the best. Crowley didn’t need to sit in a room with someone’s evil that matched his own, especially when their evil was in practice, and his was in theory. A general would do enough, even if he was a bit grim and stuffy looking. He certainly minded Crowley’s feet on the desk, but anyone who knew Anthony J. Crowley knew that he wasn’t a man to follow orders. Nothing was said, and the general leaned forward onto folded hands.

“I hear you can acquire anything,” he said.

“Within reason. Depends on what you’re asking for.”

“Chemicals, Mister Crowley,” the man grinned. “Surely, you understand.”

Crowley did. A bit too well, with what he’d seen. It wasn’t his place to judge. Satan would take them, in the end. They had every choice to stop, if they cared to. Crowley already knew some who had: deserters, defectors, rebels. Never quite enough to change the flow, but it was something. A choice they all had. Crowley pulled his feet down and leaned onto the desk with his elbows.

“It’ll cost you quite a lot, you understand.”

“We’re willing to negotiate. We’ve been having issues, you understand, Mister Crowley. It would seem that women just aren’t to be trusted.”

Crowley snorted and made no comment. When a paper was slid across to him, he took it. They weren’t just looking for better prices on gas in their chambers, but nerve agents. Weapons against the enemy, it seemed, though both sides were the enemy in some thought to another. Crowley didn’t care for either side, for their moral argument or the weight it held in lead. He did care for the cash. After the bid farewell, he was escorted back to his vehicle and watched until he was gone. The Bentley would need a good wash, after that.

It was a month later when he met the _woman_ the general had talked about, promptly an hour before he was supposed to make the exchange. He knew her by the aura she had, not by name or by face, but the feeling. Humans would sing a pretty tune about how she danced with Death and what a pair they made, but Crowley knew better. He knew that she and Death had never actually danced, and even if they did, neither of them would be very good at things. Dancing was soft, and the softest thing she seemed to like was braided hair.

“I hear you’re making the Nazis mad,” Crowley called out to her.

“They wouldn’t _be_ mad if you hadn’t rolled into town,” she replied back, then came promptly into view. Yes, Crowley knew her. She was a human thing personified in all their anger. God had not intended for her, but God had not intended for a lot of things when She began the world. War was an inevitable ending to choice, and so she stood there with red hair in a braid, in a suit.

“War seems like a place for demons,” Crowley shrugged, and he stepped down from his seat on the truck and folded his arms. “Or have I stepped on a nerve, War?”

War grinned at him, “Do you go by Demon to the humans, then? Or do you have a name?”

“Surely, you know it, if you’ve found me. Funny, though, I don’t seem to know you.”

War’s smile fell from her face immediately, with her hands on her hips, “Scarlett.”

“Anthony J. Crowley,” and he bowed.

War’s smile returned all at once; she recognized that name. She recognized Crowley like the best of them and the worst. “You’re on my turf, Crowley. I don’t believe I needed _help._”

“I hear your prices are steep. Maybe if you fixed that, they wouldn’t come crawling to me. Besides,” and he waved his hand for this, “I don’t make them shoot. That seems like your doing.”

“Their doing,” she amended. “Your doing seems to be impeding my doing, though. Might you _step off_?” she was still grinning. Scarlett grinned with all the loss of life.

“Nah,” Crowley replied, pushing himself back up to sit in the truck. “Once it’s over, I’m out. None of this sits so right anyway—it’s all yours after that.”

She might have called him soft, then; that the perils of war were getting to him, but she knew better. Crowley was here for himself and only for himself. He’d done it to fill his pockets so he wouldn’t have to worry for the rest of his timetable, whatever it was. His pockets were filled with coin, cash, and dread. The rest, he’d leave for Scarlett, and she could take it wherever she pleased. Crowley would have nothing more to do with it, once the war was over.

The war was over in 1941, for Crowley. He’d heard about it through the grapevine, that Hitler was looking for prophetic books to lay him a road map to success. Not just any prophetic book, but all of them. First edition. There was only one _person _on the planet that Crowley knew would have them, and it meant three things. One, that Aziraphale was working with the Nazis. Two, that because Aziraphale would never stoop to something so low, he was not working with the Nazis at all. Three, when they found out, things would go south. Quickly. Pear-shaped. A lead balloon. Bad. It would be bad. And he had to get there before it got bad.

In truth, Crowley didn’t know _why_. There was an urgency when he drove, not doubt. He didn’t question where he was going—a church. He would march into that church on his toes if he had to, but he would do it. It’d been far too long since he’d seen Aziraphale, and that letter was still ringing in his ears, burning in the pocket of his suit jacket. The last line of the letter before Aziraphale had signed his name and wished him away forever.

_I miss you, Crowley._

Crowley missed him too, loathe as he’d been to admit it. There was no other explanation for why he would drive so fast to a church, of all places, just to keep Aziraphale out of trouble. The only explanation was that he missed Aziraphale. He’d seen everything that Aziraphale was, and Heaven wasn’t there. Even if he couldn’t save him, he had to see him again. Even if it meant burning himself to ash in a church—Aziraphale would be there. One of them would make it out alive if he tried hard enough. One of them would walk out of there, and oh, if Aziraphale was happy to see him, they both would. They both would.

They knew him. Of course, they knew him—Crowley didn’t know them, but they knew him. It seemed every Nazi on the planet knew who he was, and he didn’t quite like the way it sat with him. In just the same contrast, all of the rest of the warfighters knew him too. Anthony J. Crowley and how his fame proceeded him. They didn’t spill his cover, well enough, and Aziraphale had the audacity to question his name. He rather liked it, but Aziraphale had been hard pressed about the first name change. Crowley didn’t care. He didn’t mind. He was here for a reason and one reason only—to save Aziraphale. That look on his face when Crowley had come prancing down the aisle with feet on fire had been nothing Crowley missed. Shock. Dismay. _Excitement_. Crowley’s only hope was that he pegged those faces correctly, and Aziraphale would listen.

“In about a minute, a German bomber will release a bomb that will land right here.” His feet hurt. He was beginning to think that for once in his life, he should have invested in _real_ shoes. “If you all run away very, very fast, you might not die.” Probably, but they didn’t need to know that Crowley was bluffing. He was bluffing the whole thing, and his _last-minute demonic intervention_ had happened quite literally seconds before he walked in the church. He was very good at that, thinking on the edge of his seat.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“It would take a real _miracle_ for my friend and I to survive it,” he hissed out, hoping that Aziraphale understood. _Praying_ that he did.

“A real miracle—?”

“Kill them!” one of the Nazi spies, but they wouldn’t live long enough to pull the trigger. Not when the whistling of a falling bomb started. There were only seconds left after that, and Crowley closed his eyes. He didn’t _want_ to go back to Hell; he knew who he’d see down there, and he wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. From _them_. If he could stay the rest of his life on earth without a care in the world, he’d find a way to do good, instead. He promised himself, right there, on the hope and a wish that Aziraphale would care enough to save them both, that he would find a way to make up for everything.

When Crowley opened his eyes, he was standing in a pile of rubble, alive. The church was gone, the Nazis gone. Aziraphale was standing there looking not quite upset, but not quite happy either. It was like he couldn’t believe that Crowley was here or what Crowley had just done. If Crowley had been anyone else than he was at that moment, he wouldn’t have believed it either. He’d never been so happy to see Aziraphale, though, and he knew that it meant he wasn’t the same demon anymore.

“That was irritating,” Crowley said, not so much at the situation, but himself. He wasn’t even the same _angel, _anymore.

“That was very kind of you,” Aziraphale’s voice was soft.

“Shut up.”

“No paperwork, to start,” Aziraphale laughed like he might be able to shift the reasoning. But then, his face fell rather quickly. “Oh, the books! Oh, I forgot all the books! Oh, they’ll all be blown too—”

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” Crowley said, the books safely contained in a bag, in his hand, and then Aziraphale’s. Crowley hadn’t forgotten the books, and how could he? If he hadn’t known Adolf Hitler was looking for the books, he would have never thought to find Aziraphale. The books were just as important to him, in that moment, as they were to anyone. He would never forget them a day in his life, and this would be his first real kindness.

“Lift home?” Crowley asked, stepping away. His second kindness.

Aziraphale should not have obliged him, not ever. But he did. He always seemed to have a soft spot, and that was how they ended up in the Bentley. In silence. Crowley didn’t tell him about his dealings, and Aziraphale didn’t ask. Instead, they listened to music. Aziraphale held the bag of books in his lap, and neither of them said so much as a word to one another. Not until the end of the ride, when Crowley had stopped in front of the bookshop, safe and wonderful and intact. As it would always be, so long as an angel guarded it.

“Sorry, angel,” Crowley said, “for everything.”

“Why, there’s nothing to apologize for. We’ve never had so much as an obligation—”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley repeated. “For being gone as long as I was.”

“Oh, well,” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Did you receive my letters?”

Crowley reached into his jacket pocket and pulled the paper out, the one that he’d carried with him for forty-years. He read it as often as he could, but otherwise, it burned into his chest as a reminder of what he’d done. But not just what he’d done, what he could _be_. Aziraphale saw something in him that Crowley had never seen, not in all the years he’d walked on earth. Something kind or gentle, not a demon but—human, perhaps. It burned to remember, but it was nothing quite so painful as the Fall had been, so Crowley would endure it.

“Would you like to come in?” Aziraphale said, his eyes sorely on the letter. He couldn’t look away. Not from something that meant so much.

“Best not to, angel.”

Aziraphale, regretfully, agreed.

The next time they were in a car together was 1967 when Aziraphale handed over a thermos of Holy Water, and Crowley rather thought he loved him. He might have had a thought that Aziraphale loved him too, but that was out of the question entirely. There was too much fear in Aziraphale’s eyes, too much doubt in the meager smile he pulled together out of dust. Too much pain in the way he said it.

_You go too fast for me, Crowley._

Crowley didn’t know what it meant. As far as he’d been concerned, they were crawling. Their starting point had been so low, Crowley couldn’t think to call it a baseline. He’d been so cruel, in the beginning. He still remembered how hateful he’d been when he took Aziraphale’s _grace_ in the hull of Noah’s ark. There was such a sinking need in him to hate Aziraphale, and that had only died away in recent years. If that was too fast, then it was too fast. Crowley didn’t know how this worked—he’d never been in love.

As it were, he let Aziraphale go. He did not let himself feel bad. Crowley just started the car and went out on his way. Perhaps, someday, they could go for a picnic or dine at the Ritz. But that was someday. Someday wasn’t a real day, not one that Crowley could hold onto, not one that he could understand. There was no visual on ‘someday’. Only the stirring feeling that it was a lie, because some near six thousand years ago, it had been a lie. Right from Crowley’s lips, and he remembered the look on her face when she’d heard it. Happiness. Crowley felt a touch evil, for it, especially when he couldn’t find that same happiness. Someday. An empty promise for an empty demon.


	3. Act III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Thank you guys so much for reading this <3 i had a lot of fun writing it, and I know that everything in it was probably a little different than most things in the fandom, but it was just a story I thought would be fun to tell. I'm really proud of what I've done here. Without further ado, the thrilling conclusion!

Not counting all the things that hadn’t changed, everything had changed after Armageddon. There were the small things that didn’t matter so much, like the new children’s collection in Aziraphale’s bookshop and how the Bentley didn’t scratch everything out with Queen anymore. There were the smaller things, like how Aziraphale kissed Crowley openly on the cheek every now and again. And the smallest, most unimportant things, where Crowley had a packet in his hand from some strange need to do things like humans would. Things like buying a house together. Crowley had been doing most of the work, but he hadn’t minded. He’d enjoyed it. Not counting all the things that hadn’t changed, _everything_ had changed.

Everything meant the little things, but they were little things that Crowley held close to the pocket of his shirt where he’d been carrying Aziraphale’s letter since he’d received it, 1901. Everything had started to change, back then, and he just hadn’t noticed it until just the perfect moment: when Aziraphale was ready. Had it been a moment too soon, Crowley would have imagined something similar to the sixties when Aziraphale left him with a thermos of Holy Water that saved his life. For some manner of things, Aziraphale had been right to be so afraid to hand it over. Crowley couldn’t imagine how difficult it had been to do that, for the fear and the trust. Crowley would also be quite incorrect to say that he hadn’t considered a second option. The option he chose had worked out relatively well, and everything fell into place in the way Aziraphale’s hand fell into his on the bus to London.

There had been a rocky amount of misunderstanding and too-understandings, but they worked it out. They worked it out like two humans would, and that had led them to a wonderful old lady named Blanche. She’d been selling homes for essentially all her life, and Crowley was particularly convinced she was as old as the drafty building she called an office. Still, she’d left him with the little packet of potentials. All that was left was to sit down with Aziraphale and decide if there was one they wanted to see. If any. Aziraphale had always been picky; Crowley hadn’t thought he would ever agree to leave the bookshop. Even if, not too long after saving each other’s lives, Aziraphale had half-moved in to the flat. He wouldn’t be just moving down the street with some of these houses; they’d be leaving London.

The news might be difficult to break, but Crowley had hoped that the pastries in his other hand would suffice as apology enough. Even if it didn’t, he’d still gone and made the effort. Aziraphale had to appreciate that, at the very least, if he appreciated nothing else. It was all but Crowley starting to regret offering the idea, really. A panic little bug that bit down tight at the base of his skull where a headache had started to grow, when he entered the bookshop. A time had been, before, when Crowley didn’t experience things like human ailments of headaches and sore muscles, but a headache was brewing. Might it have been physical or magical, Crowley wasn’t ever really sure, these days. It’d been quite a time since he’d let magic flow from his fingers. Not since Armageddon. Not since he’d frozen all time in the wake of Satan.

Perhaps he’d been a fool to think so, but it had been such a flow of magic that he frightened himself. Aziraphale hadn’t seemed to notice the difference, but he was _used_ to it—the things that Crowley could do. Maybe Aziraphale wouldn’t ever notice the extent to which Crowley could shape a world around him all his own. It was better that Aziraphale never know, never see what it meant. If he asked, Crowley wasn’t quite sure what he would say. There was no plan, no fall back, no contingency. Crowley didn’t have a story, save the truth, and the truth would win him no favors.

Everything, from there, was off. There was a stiffness in the air about the bookshop, the kind of stiffness that sent a rushing wave of strangeness through Crowley’s arms. He hadn’t taken three steps into the shop before he knew something was wrong and horribly so. Mind that the sign on the door had said the shop was closed, there wasn’t a soul about. A type of emptiness that wormed and crawled into every crevice and hole it didn’t belong; there wasn’t a soul in the shop. Save for Crowley, as he waltzed in and set the packet and the pastries on the counter. He was the only soul about, and once the empty had dug its way into the very pores on his skin, he realized what it meant.

“Aziraphale?” he called. As he suspected, there came no answer. Just a strange echo back like he’d called for himself. Still, he pressed on in feeble belief that Aziraphale was just elsewhere in the shop. An errand only a fool would run, but Crowley was turning quite a fool since he’d first thought about a world without Aziraphale—how much he didn’t want that.

It’s why he’d frozen time, then. It’s why he’d thrown all his power to the wind and separated space from her axis to bring the Anti-Christ and Aziraphale away. Because Aziraphale had threatened to go away forever, that he would never speak a word Crowley’s way again. Such was the softer thought that Crowley chose, moving to the stairs of the bookshop. He tried to ignore the smell of ash that lingered at the back of his nose, just where it drained down in his throat, and he could taste the fire. His fingers faltered on the banister, the flames that danced in its wake. The flames that burned up his arms and into his eyes—Crowley remembered crying, then. Remembered falling to his knees in the middle of the flames and sobbed for a friend he’d lost forever.

Not forever. He reminded himself when he reached the second floor. Aziraphale had never really been gone, even if he’d been different. What truly mattered was how he returned. Aziraphale was a constant, and he always had been. Even from the moments Crowley had loathed him for the very thing he represented, Aziraphale had never really been gone. Even in _flames_ and bodies and death, Aziraphale had never really been gone. He wouldn’t be gone, not forever. Crowley just had to find him. More than that, he had to believe that there was a chance to find him. Even with the bookshop burned away around him, from where he looked down with wobbled knees and white knuckles from the second floor, Aziraphale would still be somewhere.

“Aziraphale?!” Crowley called again, louder. Only that strange, wordless echo of nothing in return. Something cold in the sodded wind of the flames long gone, in a bookshop long new. He called once more, but there was nothing to be gained for it. The shop was empty, not a soul in sight. It was a normal thing, really. And the door had read closed. The time, though. Crowley couldn’t get past the time. Aziraphale wasn’t one to change routine. If his routine said he would be at the shop, he would be.

Only he wasn’t. One thing had changed between this day and every other day that Crowley had stopped by the old burning place. It was the packet. The packet of houses that would take them out of London, potentially, and spell the beginning of a new era where they didn’t just poke and play at domesticity, but where they lived together. They might even sleep in the same room, the same bed, and lie so close together that it would be more than simply lying. It would be frightening, as frightening things went. A type of commitment that they had yet to see, yet to use, and yet to truly come to terms with. Gone would be the ability to walk away, if they needed it. Aziraphale wouldn’t have a bookshop to run to, not if they left London.

If Aziraphale had left in fear for what sort of future lie in the pages of that packet, Crowley wouldn’t blame him. Crowley couldn’t blame him—it terrified Crowley more than perhaps either of them. This kind of commitment that he’d sworn away since he knew he couldn’t be trusted with it, but Aziraphale meant _more_ than that. He had since the beginning and blasted if it hadn’t taken Crowley years and decades and centuries to find it for himself. Ever since that look on the walls of Eden, Aziraphale had meant more. Now—now he was _gone_. Gone and. No, that wasn’t right.

Aziraphale wouldn’t leave. Crowley just had to gather himself back together in the wake of the burning flames and remember that the bookshop was standing, unburnt, and Aziraphale wouldn’t leave without a word. In all the years he had known Aziraphale, in all the years that he had _loved_ him, Aziraphale had never been the one to leave. That was quite Crowley’s number, and he certainly hadn’t gone anywhere. Might it have been better for Aziraphale to find someone who deserved him, but he had fought squarely and surely with the idea that Crowley _did_ deserve him. He didn’t believe it then, and he wouldn’t believe it a second more if he could not at least find Aziraphale, if he could not right whatever wrong he had done—the packet be damned.

Crowley descended the stairs once more, a clearer head, and looked around. Something in the whole of the shop had to be wrong; he just had to find it and understand it properly. But what in the normal mess would strike out has strange? Aziraphale’s normal was Crowley’s strange: cluttered mess, strewn out over every surface in the shop. On the desk, there were books and manuscripts left half open, third read. Beside them, a cooling mug of cocoa. In any other situation, maybe a hot drink long gone cold would be cause for alarm, but with Aziraphale: normal. All of it was normal. The shelves in their disarray, the manuscripts spread out. The stacks of books, the dust. The everything. Nothing was out of order.

When Crowley came to finally sit at the desk, it was more of a tired collapse. Maybe Aziraphale truly had gone. He’d been in such a hurry to get away from Crowley and his packet that he’d gone for a long lunch, closed the shop, and was waiting just out of reach for Crowley to disappear. That wasn’t quite right, either. Crowley had always known where Aziraphale was, if he tried. If he listened hard enough to the voices in the wind and the magic in his veins, he could find Aziraphale. He’d always been able to find Aziraphale—the funeral, the Bastille, the church. When he leaned into his hands, on the desk, and _focused_. He could find nothing. Like Aziraphale had vanished and left his cocoa to cool, his manuscripts a third read.

Where would he have gone? Surely, Aziraphale wasn’t the type to fly off to Alpha Centauri. He’d been so against it, each time Crowley had offered. Even then, Crowley would know that. He would know the whole universe in a snap, if he must, and he did. Still, there was nothing. No sign of Aziraphale; not so much as a breath of his being lingered on. Like Aziraphale had truly, one and all, vanished. In the way they had tried to prevent, perhaps, and Crowley’s fingers shook at the thought. No, the memory. Of the bookshop in flames, when he hadn’t felt so much a breath. The same. The same horrid, dropping feeling in the pit of his stomach—like Aziraphale was gone. But not just gone. Like Aziraphale was not.

On the way towards the door, Crowley grabbed up the packet. He’d return it to Blanche and tell her Aziraphale had changed his mind, about everything. Something stopped him halfway, packet in hand. In the clutter that wasn’t quite as normal as Crowley had thought, and if only because the books were laid upside-down in a way that would bend the spine. Aziraphale wouldn’t do that. He certainly wouldn’t leave his readers on the ground, where Crowley had kicked them and seen the mess in the first place. Right in the pathway, too. Where they felt of Aziraphale and a purpose that had Crowley leaning down to pick them up.

Just what did it mean?

Crowley couldn’t spend a second longer in a shop with a taste of ash still so high in the air, but he did take the readers. He fled from the shop in such a haste, he nearly forgot he’d driven the Bentley. When he remembered, he paused at the door with just the right amount of hesitation to look around, take in the people. The last time he had so hastily left the bookshop, he’d been met by Asmodeus—straight from hell with word of warning that he should stop whatever it was he’d been doing with _an angel._ Back then, he’d been insistent that it was nothing, but he should have known. Hell knew more than he had, at that time, sending a demon of Lust after him. Now, no. Still, no, not lust. Never lust. Lust wasn’t enough of a drive to send him straight back to the flat, where he threw the packet on the desk where it splattered out and papers fluttered. Lust wouldn’t send him back to where he’d come from—_magic. _For an angel.

“This is stupid—stupid,” Crowley hissed to himself. He was sitting in the throne, bent over his knees with the readers in his hands, brushing over the lenses with his thumbs. “Stupid,” again.

He’d sworn it off. He hadn’t used magic since, not since then. Not since the switch, and that had been _normal _magic. That hadn’t been him. It hadn’t been unique, no. That hadn’t been since Satan had tried to walk the earth, and it hadn’t been exactly his best idea. Aziraphale hadn’t caught on, but he might—he _might_, if he knew. If he knew what Crowley would do, what the magic meant. If Crowley had to answer those questions, he would. He would answer them all with an earnest unmatched in noble tell, if only for a chance to find him again. To find Aziraphale again.

“Here goes nothing,” and Crowley hoped he still knew what to do.

When magic brewed up from his fingers, it was bold and red as it ever was in wispy starlight strings around the readers. In the wind they created, the whirlwind, the lenses poured out into nothingness and clouded vision, just in front of Crowley’s eyes where he could _see_. Just beyond, just enough to know where Aziraphale was, but what he saw sent a frozen chill through his spine and left him immobile, afraid, even. Crowley had never been _afraid_ before, not really. Not even in the face of the Archangels, he hadn’t been afraid. What came through in the puff of reddened smoke and stardust filled Crowley with such a fear that his breath caught in his throat, and he blinked.

Aziraphale.

Aziraphale was standing there, in the middle of a gray expanse, of nothingness and substance all the same. In a clouded arena of living walls and floors, where the streaks of lightning had jolted out from unseen corners out in flashing little pulses of _life_ around Aziraphale’s wrists, where they were tautly held at full arm stretch where he was left helpless, immobile, and _afraid_. His eyes were wide, and if not for the tight hold he was wrapped up in, he would be shaking. The floor looked not a floor at all, just the idea of a floor, the way it pulsed and rolled and mashed beneath Aziraphale’s feet—flatly spread like it _was_ a floor. Worse, Aziraphale wasn’t alone.

Fire spread out around him, near him, with him, in the way that fire did when left unwatched and uncontrolled. But it never came close enough, not to singe. Just enough to light up Aziraphale’s eyes with the idea of what it could do, as he stared pointedly at where it came from. Who it was coming from. A woman with fire in her veins the same way Crowley had a magic of painful red in his. It was the same, because he’d put it there. Instilled it so deep into her that she’d taken it, morphed it, made it hers. The same color as her hair, a fearful sort of flame that came to life in her anger, wiped around her in air that didn’t blow. And her eyes. Her eyes—so blue and soft; all that remained of an innocence stolen from her long ago. Six thousand years ago.

Lilith. _Lilith_. Crowley remembered her name like a sour bit of tea left too long to stoop.

When the fires had found their own footing, they broke away from her fingers and her veins and burned on their own. Lilith, in her burning way, stalked forward with a pointed, specific sort of saunter that would have been the same in anything she wore, but she wore _tight_. Lilith didn’t stop until she was inches away from Aziraphale, and then she curled her finger down his cheek in the line a tear would follow. Aziraphale wouldn’t give her that, even if his fingers jolted, and his teeth had clenched tight together. He wouldn’t give her _tears_. He wouldn’t give her anything if he could help it. Nothing to tell her that he was afraid, that he was shaking, that he had never _seen_ a person like her before.

But the lighting wisps that held him in place prevented him from giving anything that he _should_. Aziraphale couldn’t protect himself. Even if he had snapped his fingers, thought a pretty spell on his lips, nothing would happen. That was how Lilith intended it to be—she wanted him a quiet, quaint little thing that she could play with on her own accord. Something devious, something terrible. That smile on her face almost dared to seem sweet, and Aziraphale would have squirmed away if he could move. Even if he did, he was wrenched right back into place. Then, Lilith’s lips parted for her fiendish little tongue. Long and forked like a snake’s. Like a tongue she hadn’t had, once.

“Sorry to keep you so long,” she said, “all alone. I’m sure it was scary.” There was no hiss, though. Lilith wouldn’t deign.

Aziraphale didn’t respond with more than a twitch in his left eye. It was such a subtle movement that Lilith wouldn’t notice, and Lilith wouldn’t understand what it meant.

“Fine then,” she conceded and stepped away, “don’t talk. I don’t _want_ you to talk. I want you to listen, Aziraphale.”

“How do you—”

“Know your name?” she finished. “I know _everything_.” Her words echoed out in a way that was painful and true. That she knew everything. “I know more about you than even you know,” she continued. She stepped around Aziraphale, behind him, where he couldn’t see her. “I know more about that wretched demon than you do, too.”

“What has Crowley got to do with—?”

“Crowley?” Lilith snorted. “Crowley’s got nothing to do with it.” She’d circled around completely and stopped, square footed, inches from Aziraphale’s face. “That’s not even his _name,_” she snarled.

Aziraphale said nothing. Lilith back-stepped away from Aziraphale, a sly bit of venom dripping in the way her smile spread across her face.

“That’s curiosity, that is,” she said, pointing straight at the crinkle in Aziraphale’s nose. “You want to know what I know. You want to know _who I am_.”

“Frankly, I want you to let me go—”

There was a crack of thunder. Fire grew and spread inches closer, wider, and the room’s air burned as much as the floors did. The walls. A sudden flare from the anger bubbling in Lilith’s throat closed Aziraphale’s lips once more, and he did so tremble. He wouldn’t try for commentary again, not with the flames coming closer. It wasn’t the fire that scared him, it was the uncertainty. Was it fire? Was it _Hellfire_. Aziraphale had no way to know, and Lilith had _complete_ control of it. If he made her mad, he would find out sure enough what it was.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

Aziraphale shook his head and did not speak.

“Strange,” but Lilith didn’t seem so offended, “since we’ve met. Only once, mind, and it was a long, long time ago. I suppose I never mattered much, not in the scheme of things. Your _demon_ made sure of that.”

More silence filled the air as some of the fire shied away and climbed back up her arms. Lilith raised her arms then, palms forward and facing Aziraphale—he flinched. Aziraphale flinched, but he couldn’t move. Seconds passed, and he could think of nothing more but the word of _Hellfire, _what it would mean. This would be the end of everything. The end that never came, even as the fire spread out through Lilith’s fingers, it stopped in the air. It burned on nothing as it spun a fired circle. The space filled in quickly with more of the gray-scape they were surrounded in, until Aziraphale couldn’t see Lilith and the light in her eyes.

Her blue, blue eyes. The first time Crowley had seen Aziraphale’s eyes, he’d seen Lilith. He’d seen her in all her beauty laid out with a halo of fire on his black cloak, smiling and trusting out beneath that willow tree. Crowley pressed the magic into the readers harder—this wasn’t a place. It’s why he couldn’t find Aziraphale, not even the remnant of a breath. Lilith had taken him to a place of Crowley’s own design, and he regretted every action he’d ever made that led him to that. He should have known; he shouldn’t have been so blind.

Lilith stepped away from her creation, the rippling, burning portal, so she could see. Aziraphale stiffened at the sight of it, when the ripples turned to colors, and the flame danced until there was _something_ in the middle. Oh, Lilith loved the little way he squirmed when he saw the Garden. Eden, dancing there right in front of them to lay the scene, in every truth and every thought Lilith had ever wanted to share. Aziraphale would see it all, right there, and then he would understand. He would understand why Lilith needed him, needed his help. Now that she was free.

The Garden was off limits to demons; it was made for good things, for beautiful things, and God didn’t count demons among that. That didn’t mean that this horridly, wonderfully familiar figure didn’t want _in._ The red hair, the long running curls around a sharp face, sharp bones, and yellow eyes. Oh, he wanted in. His fingers, nails long and stained, painted along the high walls of the garden. He _wanted_. The walls stood high, though, and there would be no way in for a demon. Not even if that demon could fly, fly, and fly so high above the walls he would see inside. The best he had ever managed was to sit on the wall with his feet dangling down, inside, where no tree would grow tall enough for him to touch.

He could see the Garden, and that was often enough. It had been enough during creation. It had been enough after the Fall. It wasn’t enough when the people walked. Adam had been first, with starkly darkened skin and a body crafted by God Herself. The demon had watched, watched, and wondered on a bit longer until the sun had fallen. That was when he saw the second. A woman with long, long hair made of sun flares and blue eyes dipped in sky. She noticed where the demon swung his legs and smiled at him, waved, and wondered. When she called, the demon fell again. An invitation—enough to step foot. Not enough to stay. He would need more than her eye to stay, much more.

“What’s your name?” she asked as they danced around a tree. Their hands barely touched, but their eyes met when they swung just enough. She held onto the tree and laughed to herself, teeth bright against her red lips and darkened skin.

“What’s yours?” the demon asked in a hiss.

She laughed, a sweet little thing with creased cheeks. “Lilith,” she said. “You’re new around here. I’ve only seen Adam, and he’s, well.” She shrugged and stepped away from the tree, folding her arms behind her back. She was naked, stark, and the demon couldn’t help but stare. “He’s a bit strange, I think. Awkward, you understand? Stiff.”

The demon laughed, “stiff. I can understand.” He dared take a step closer. Lilith didn’t shy away; she curled her hair around her finger, instead, smiling up and down as the demon stepped once more. “You look like quite the opposite. You might enjoy a bit of _fun_, perhaps?”

“Fun,” Lilith mulled. “What kind of fun would you suggest?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. I could point you out the different plants and their names, though I didn’t have much to do with plants.”

“It’s dark,” she commented, “hard to see the plants.”

The demon offered his hand all with claws and disappearing scales; she didn’t question. She even looked to enjoy the daring nature of it and took his hand. He pulled and walked until they were out in the middle of the garden, standing on a trodden path. He pointed up, and she followed the tip of his finger to the sky. It was slowly growing a dark blue, and in it, the speckled little dots began to glow, to sparkle. Lilith’s eyes widened, and in them, in her blue, the sparkle reflected.

“They’re stars,” he told her. “That’s what I named them.”

“_You_ named them?” she would have marveled, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“I did more than name them,” he said. “I hung them. I crafted them in my hands with _magic_ and put them in the sky so you could see them.”

That caught her attention enough to look. “For me?” she asked. Lilith pursed her lips and blinked, just once.

“Just for you,” he told her.

“I haven’t even had your name.” That didn’t stop her from intertwining their fingers. When the demon pulled her closer, she didn’t object. When he leaned down to her ear, she _shivered_ at the sound of his name, the way it breathed against her skin and lit a fire that she didn’t know existed.

“Samael.”

Lilith seemed to bristle at the name, a warm smile falling over her as the last bit of light dripped away, over the side of the garden. When they were left with nothing but inches between them, the only bit of light that seemed to shine from Samael’s eyes, the time was up. Samael could feel the tug on his wings, at his feet, dragging him away from the place that he was not meant to be. With mere minutes left, he took Lilith’s hands in his own and pressed one to his chest, one to his lips where he kissed her knuckles with sweetness she’d never known. Then, he smiled at her.

“I must leave, Milady, this place is not for me. But,” which he said in a darkened whisper against the skin of her cheek in the breath of her hair, “if you call for me again, I will come. You need but only invite me, and I should join you time and time again, until you’ve had your fill.”

Lilith’s hum was pleased and gentle. Before Samael could pull away, she placed a kiss of gentle lip to his cheek and grinned for it. Samael’s touch set fires in her skin, and when he pulled away, she knew what coldness was. She would call for him, again and again, if she could. If he would only hear her plea, she would call each night the sun started to set, and they would watch it disappear until Samael disappeared, as he did. Down into the ground like he’d never been there at all, and she felt cold.

Come the following sunsets, she called for Samael. Each time, he fell into the garden with her and wisped her about like she was air in his fingertips, a dance of little nothings and sweet whispers until she was weak in his arms. They would walk about the Garden, where Adam couldn’t see, and talk in hushed whispers about the things of the world. Samael would name the stars for her, at night. He would point and draw the pictures out with the red lines in his fingertips. She’d noticed it but never asked, and when Samael pressed those fingers into her skin, she felt warm.

It was the warmth she missed when Samael left her, the gentle touch. Adam barely spoke a word to her for lack of things to say. Samael had never run out of words, and when Lilith spoke, he listened. He listened and leaned close and pressed kisses into her skin like _flames_. She missed being warm, when he vanished. It was why she called to him each night in hopes and prayers that he would answer; he always did. In answer to her loneliness and her cold, he stepped down from the wall on the fifth day with something black and soft in his arms, which he presented.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“A cloak of my own making,” he said, draping it over her shoulders. He did not wrap it. “I would hope it would keep you company in my absence, but I see it may not be enough.”

“Why must you leave?” Lilith asked as if the cloak had quite all but unimpressed her. She stared at Samael with large, blue eyes and a pouted lip, inching closer through the grass. “If you could just _stay_, I wouldn’t need a thing of you. Just you, Samael, just you. That’s all—” and she stepped away, horror on her face at the words she said without thought.

“Don’t,” Samael pressed. For each step she took back, he took one forward. “I want to hear it. I’ll listen, Lilith. I always have.”

She stiffened, then, with hands wrung in the cloak. Samael had always listened to her, even if she was something new without half as much to say as he did, he listened. Always. When she mused about the fish in the river, or the way the flowers bloomed, Samael had listened. There wasn’t much to talk about in a Garden with as little knowledge as she had, but Samael had listened. Even now, he stalked closer until his hands were about her neck in such a shivering, hesitant touch, that Lilith’s chest swelled with breath and _something_. She didn’t know the name of the warmth anymore, as her skin was still cold. With his hands on her skin, she still shivered. The warmth was different, an unnamed feeling in her soul that fluttered and dreamed for her, when Samael came close.

“I don’t want you to leave, Samael,” she whispered. Lilith’s eyes closed, lashes dancing, and she bit back through tears. “You must stay with me. I don’t understand this—this _thing_ in my chest, but I can’t be without you.”

“You don’t mean that,” Samael whispered.

“I do.”

Samael’s breath seized in his chest where it stayed, and he did not blink. He only closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Lilith’s—she melted under it, her eyes dipped closed and knees weak. She came close to lay her arms about his shoulders and pull him to her height, where they could kiss a deeper, fiery thing. When his hands dropped to her waist, her breath hitched, and suddenly the cloak on her shoulders was too much. She wanted it off—she wanted Samael bare, against her.

The sky was dark and full of stars, but Samael wasn’t leaving this time. He was taking her, with her legs around his hips, and his arms around her waist. Underneath a willow tree where the roots had grown through the grass and spread out, he laid her. The black cloak of his own making presented out a soft and pleasant bed. When Lilith laid amongst it, she opened for Samael. A place for him between her thighs, against the smoothness of her skin—the beauty of it all. For the longest breath, all they did was kiss.

Lilith made quick work of Samael’s robes, tearing them down his back until they fell away completely and were gone. He hadn’t even made move to be rid of them, only shifted slightly, and they were bare and pressed together. It was a dark and dangerous thing, Lilith knew. She hadn’t a mind for anything but, not when she felt every hard press of Samael’s body. Every ridge, every sharp joint, it was just another _something_ she didn’t understand enough to name. All she knew was that it lit her on fire, made her feel a kind of wholeness she had never known. Not in all the hours she prayed, not in all the minutes she marveled. Samael was something different, something dark, and she kissed him like she might never let him go.

The fire only grew, in multitudes, around her when he touched her. When Samael’s breath was on her, when his fingers gripped her, there was nothing else. Just a burning passion she didn’t understand, a swell she didn’t know, and the kiss so gentle she could have cried. She didn’t cry. Not then. Lilith gasped and writhed, but she did not cry. When the fire spread inside her, when Samael carved a place for himself, she only grasped onto his shoulders and rocked with him. She had never needed something more than this, than Samael so close that they had become the same body, the same being, the same breath.

Only, Aziraphale held his as he watched, fists pulled together in a way that said this was more painful than any spell Lilith could have used, any words she might have said. It was a _truth_ that Aziraphale didn’t know, and she lorded it over him now about at time he didn’t know. A demon he did, but not in all the ways he thought. Samael. The name of an angel, the serpentine eyes—Crowley. There was breath caught up in his throat, Aziraphale’s, as he watched. The only time he dared look away was at a sudden move of flame, at the side, where Lilith stood with wide eyes and a perked smile. She was entranced with her little illusion, and when she clenched her hands in time with the pulsing of the circle, Aziraphale knew something was wrong. But the play went on.

Crowley—Samael laid beside Lilith in a sudden exhaustion. After a beat, a moment, he welcomed her back into his arms where he held her close, her cheek against his chest. In the quiet solace of the nighttime sky, the shaking of the willow branches, she fell asleep against him. Samael did not sleep—he didn’t _need_ to sleep. Instead, he watched her with fingers through her hair, a gentle touch to whatever skin he could find. To her skin, her shoulder, the bareness of her sides. Like he had to feel her, to know she was with him and would not leave. Even if Lilith would never leave, Samael would hold her for it regardless, like she might if he didn’t press kisses into her forehead and smooth his hand down the flat of her stomach.

Something was growing, there, and it cursed them both. The days passed in flashes of forgotten and repressed things, like flames, where God had stepped between them in Her light and in Her glory to tear them a part. Where once, Samael had had nothing to lose—he’d already Fallen—there was something, now, that She could take from him. For it, he would fight. For her, for Lilith—for what was growing between them in all the warmth she didn’t understand, spreading down from her chest into the pit of her stomach. Lilith stood there, a helpless heroine in a telling all her own, while Samael crossed _blades_ with God Herself, and it was an inevitable sort of thing. Samael would lose, perish, and never grow on to be who he was. Only he didn’t.

Samael stood blades across from God, who looked between him and Lilith with a word of damnation on Her lips. She would spare them only in the way of sending them both to Hell. In his second fall, Samael lost his legs when She branded him a traitor, a serpentine _lie_. If only he’d kept to himself, stayed out of the Garden, none of it would have happened. Samael had no regrets, not when he had curled a large and black snake in Lilith’s lap and felt her fingers dance across his skin. In time, as this thing grew, Samael would find a way back into a pleasant form. It would only take _time_.

In time, Samael learned the human form again once his revenge was complete. For Lilith, he had slithered back to the Garden. If they could not be there, then no one could. Not Adam, and not his new partner—Eve. Samael had wound his way up her body and whispered so deliciously into her ear, that she could not resist the apple and all the consequences that would come. She took Adam with her, for the folly of man was God’s own creation. Samael had played his part in _free will_, and they were both cast out of Eden. In time, Samael met the angel and lied about his name.

After the rains came, Samael disappeared from Eden and thought no more about it. If the walls would come down, then so be it. If the angel would die, then so be it. If God would regret all that She had done, well, Samael would laugh for it. There were better things to attend to, more important things. Demons, if that’s what Lilith would be now, did not follow the laws of humans or angels. They did as they pleased, as they wanted, and it had taken no more than a week’s time for Lilith to grow heavy with that thing that grew between them. Not a thing, not anymore, but a _child_. An once and real manifestation of everything that Samael felt for her, and how he held her, then. Close, with his hands around her cheeks, and with love.

“What should we name him?” Lilith asked, once he’d settled her back down into a place that looked quite like a home but couldn’t have possibly been. They were in Hell.

“Him?” Samael smiled, curling her hair behind her ears. There were sparks between it and Samael’s fingertips, where her hair had turned to fire in the wake of her damnation.

“I have a feeling,” she said, hand over her stomach. “It’s definitely a him.”

They talked of names until they could talk no more, and Samael leaned forward with a pleasant kiss against Lilith’s lips. She always had a moment to spare for his touch, for his kiss. Even as she wore clothes now, beautiful things draped all over her and help with golden broaches, she still longed to feel his skin, his fire. As long as he would give that to her, she would give him anything in return. For a demon as great as he, there was surely something that she could give him. Something that he would find with no other, not in such a way that he would find it with her. In the shape of her womb, her belly.

Eventually, it was a son. A him. A perfect mix of the both of them in his red hair, his serpent’s eyes. They called him Asmodeus, and the first time Samael held the babe in his arms, his eyes lit up with _love_. The only child in the world that he would love as he did, with a heart not meant for it, but he would find a way. Asmodeus was his _son._ The rest of the children could be all but damned, for there was only _one_ child Samael would see. So, when Samael heard wind of God’s plan for a flood, it made him smile. His arm was tight around Lilith’s shoulder, and Asmodeus cooed in their arms.

Recognition hit hard: none of it could be right. Not a single word in the story she weaved. Aziraphale _remembered_ the way Crowley—not Crowley. The way that Samael had agonized over the children, watching Noah and his family build their ark. He had given everything in his anguish to only save one child. Amaranthine. Aziraphale remembered the look on her face when she’d finally met the end of her life, but it was the face of someone fulfilled. Someone who had lived a life with _love_, something Samael would have never been able to afford her if he truly was that bad of a demon, if he truly loathed all children but his own.

“No!” Aziraphale suddenly shouted out, shocked by the sound of his own voice and the confidence it had taken to speak.

“No?” the vision came to a halt like an old video tape when Lilith’s head snapped around to look at him. “What do you _mean_ no?”

“He didn’t—he wouldn’t do that. He loves children, and he fought to save them—”

“He didn’t _need_ them!” Lilith shouted, stalking closer. Her hair lit at the ends and grew. “He had our _son_—he didn’t _need_ humans!”

Aziraphale worried into his bottom lip, flinching back when she stalked closer, and the fire _burned._ She stopped just sort of singeing his clothes, but she was close enough that Aziraphale could feel the heat. It was her anger, but nothing she’d shown had justified it. Samael had loved her. He’d held her close and kissed her, named their son with her. They had danced; Aziraphale had watched it. He’d watched Samael disappear at every turn to visit Lilith from her home in Hell, where she could not leave. Yet, it all spelled out quite like a novel, and Aziraphale had read so many. None of it would explain the way she’d come.

“He didn’t need _you_,” Lilith continued.

The circle rose to life again behind her, and Aziraphale had no choice but to look. But to watch as the image swirled together in such a familiar fashion—the bookshop. Where Samael stood with Lilith in his arms, kissing her in the same way he would kiss Aziraphale. Everything about it was the same—even the way Samael _looked_. The short hair, the glasses, the suit. Oh, it was everything Aziraphale knew. Right down to the brand on his face in the shape of a snake. Samael had kissed him just like that, the first time he’d brought Aziraphale back to the shop. After Armageddon, when their lives had changed. But it was Lilith, there, in the vision. Lilith whom he held close, whispered to, kissed. _Loved_.

“_Stop_ this,” Aziraphale pressed. “Please, I beg of you, I don’t understand—” he didn’t want to see this. Maybe he hadn’t even realized until that exact moment, the strange twist in his gut that it left, to see these things. To see Samael with someone who wasn’t him, as someone who wasn’t Crowley.

“Do you know who I am now?” she asked, calmer than she had been.

Aziraphale knew. He knew from the moment the vision started that he was talking to Lilith. She had been the first woman in Eden, and she had been damned from entering ever again. Like a demon, but truly human and truly horrid in her powers. Aziraphale knew now where they came from; he knew what made a damned human’s soul so strong. In her veins ran Samael’s venom, his spite, his inability to let go. The venom had festered and fired until it burned out through her fingertips and hair and left her this. A shadow of what she’d been, a demonic thing with eyes a remnant of her innocence. She was Lilith, the first wife. Or, she would have been, had Samael not gotten to her sooner. The story was wrong.

Lilith spat, “you went through all of history with a _liar.__”_

It hurt more than it needed to. But she was no different. Lilith was a liar, and Aziraphale knew that from the second he’d seen her eyes light up at her own vision. It was like watching a movie for the very first time or getting to the end of a book to see the ending dreamed of. Aziraphale knew it well, as much as he loved media. That had been her media, her type of movie. The play she wanted to see, where Samael stayed with her and held her, told her that he loved her and would do anything. She perverted the truth, where Samael said those things to another—to Aziraphale. And it hurt more than it needed to, now, to know his name and to know his lies.

This wouldn’t be a story where Aziraphale waited around for rescue, as much as he had played before. The funeral, the Bastille, the church—_Crowley_ had always been there to rescue him. To ensure he was safe from harm, whatever type it would be. That was a memory Aziraphale wanted to keep as close as he could, to ignore what the truth would mean. If Samael came waltzing through the pulsing, thundered walls, it would ruin the anger in Aziraphale’s throat. Ruin the confidence he mustered when he looked at Lilith with his own fire and wished ever hard for a second that he still had his sword.

“Haven’t you lied?” he asked. The fire surged.

“You want the _truth_ do you!?” she shouted; she shouted so loud that the walls shook, and her feet came away from the ground. “You think the truth will make it _better_? Make it _hurt_ less?” Every word was a shriek. A cry.

Aziraphale couldn’t muster a response, not anymore.

“Fine,” Lilith spat at him, and she hit the ground. The truth wouldn’t help either of them, and Aziraphale saw that in her eyes. The way that the seemed to glisten in the fire, like they were wet. Like the truth would ruin her as badly as it would ruin him, and she hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted to _ruin_ Aziraphale, maybe. Just change his mind. Show him something false but easier. Aziraphale wanted the truth more for it. He needed it more than anything.

Once Samael had finished with Lilith, he left. He didn’t even wait for her to fall asleep, and he certainly didn’t come to her when she opened her arms. Her eyes broke open at his ‘someday’, but it was a lie. Just another thing that slid of his tongue in a hiss, a broken thing on a forked tongue. He dressed in his robes as he walked away, and from them, he pulled a seed. When Samael had Fallen, he’d taken one thing with him. It had survived the Fall through the strength of spite alone, and now Samael had his way into Eden. Lilith had given _extra_, more than just a free pass to walk the grass. Samael had taken it willingly, because why would he not?

He was evil.

In the middle of the garden, he pressed the seed into the ground and vanished. He’d be back by the time God sent a second woman, by the time Adam and that woman ever learned a thing of each other and pressed close. And when it happened, Samael would be back. To his back, the seed sprouted faster than any plant ever would. This was a special plant, celestial. A wonderful plant, really, that had sprouted almost on Samael’s command. And it grew, grew, shot up with leaves and branches and down with roots. From the leaves and the branches sprouted apples, and from the roots sprouted deeper roots to hold the thing in place. God would not be able to uproot it, for it was God’s tree. Everything She knew that She had not left with humans was in that tree, and Samael left it in the garden.

God would tell the story of how She had placed the tree there, before she learned what Samael had done. The guard of Eden would come next, too late, because the tree was there. In the same breath, Lilith was banished. Samael was not there to fight for her; he was hiding down in hell with a band of demons circled around him as he laid out his plan on a wobbly table. Hell was certainly less a beauty than Heaven, but it worked all the same for Samael’s spite, his anger. He fed it, and the other demons wanted him to. They marveled and awed at his plan, and all that came left was a rather annoyed, huffing snort from Beelzebub.

“Get up there and make some trouble, then,” she said with a dismissive wave.

Samael grinned something awful and disappeared in a cloud of feathers, of darkness, and was gone. God had not forced the look of a snake on him, though the brand had come from Her hand all the same. It was a sacrifice he’d been willing to make, to slither his way back to Eden. Eve was her name, and she was only half as lovely as Lilith had been, not nearly as smart. Adam hadn’t been as smart as Lilith either, and it’d been why he’d stayed so far away. If Lilith would fall, they would fall easily. It was barely a whisper in Eve’s ear that had her grabbing down an apple, and Samael knew his job was done.

The ease of which he slid up the wall and stepped human form to look at Aziraphale was sickening. He smiled so easily. Looked at him so gently, with wide yellow eyes and an attentive ear. It’d been the same way he’d caught Lilith, and it worked a charm every time. Aziraphale had fallen for it. Lilith had fallen for it, and the long list of lovers Samael found along the way had fallen for it. Just like Lilith, he’d left them all without even a saving comment for his actions. In his wake, he left a growing pit of _evil_. Just be existing.

Aziraphale knew, then, that Crowley hadn’t laid him in Noah’s ark for any pleasant look in his eyes. It had been something different. Entirely, horribly different. Everything was entirely, horribly different, as Samael’s life seemed to lay out in strings. Crowley had never been much of a demon, but that was because he didn’t have to be. At the worst of times, he barely had to be Samael. Humans just reacted to the darkness inside him, and they’d been reacting to it since he laid it out in a seed in Eden. Samael was the Source of Evil, and Aziraphale believed that. Even if he didn’t, because Lilith skipped over the things she didn’t like. The soft things she had no explanation for: the funeral, the Bastille, the church.

Those were the things Aziraphale tried to think on, when the vision played again in slower speed. It had backtracked to a place in Rome, before it burned and Nero played his fiddle. Samael looked a different breath than Crowley had, but Crowley had needed the look for Caligula. Caligula was gone, and Samael was standing just outside the outskirts of the city when Lilith approached him. She was dressed in a long, white tunic, covered only by a stola made of colors only a rich woman could afford. Lilith didn’t live on Earth, though, and she never would. She would miracle things to her for this and this alone, because the earth was a dirty thing she did not want to tread. For Samael, she made an allowance.

“What do you want?” he _spat_ at her and set aside his lute. Like she’d quite gone and come to ruin whatever peaceful time he was having, and way from it all, he didn’t have to pretend he was anything other than the Source of Evil.

“Oh, so you do remember me,” Lilith replied, just as angry. From the way they talked, it wasn’t the first time they had met. It had been awhile, but they had done this before. In just as much anger.

“How could I forget? You haven’t left me alone since Eden.”

Lilith folded her arms about her chest and scowled. “I have a purpose, this time. If you could stop sulking long enough to hear it.”

“I’m _not _sulking,” Samael insisted. He was, in a very Crowley way

“You have a son.”

Samael would have sputtered if it didn’t seem not to surprise him. In real time, demons or whatever type of thing Lilith had become did not have children faster. They had them slower. It was why damning humans was so important, or they would lose the numbers of Hell before they lost the War. It had taken all this time, but Samael still knew. The moment Asmodeus has been born, named, and weened—Samael had known.

“Have you got anything to say? Or are you just going to sit there?” Lilith demanded.

“I’m going to sit here,” he said. He didn’t even deign to look at her. He picked his lute back up and plucked the strings, whistling.

“You have a son! You should at _least_ do the proper thing and meet him, shouldn’t you?” Nothing. “Listen to me! You started this; you did this. This is entirely _your_ fault, and if you would just—Samael!”

“That is _not_ my name,” Samael flew from his seat then, inches from Lilith with a hovering hand like he meant to _strangle_ her.

“Trying to do right, are we?” Lilith smirked, laughed, but she did not look afraid. “Do right by everyone but me, hm? And what about your son—Asmodeus _deserves_ a father. If you hadn’t been such a complete _prick—__”_

Lilith grabbed Samael by the wrist when his fingers came closer, almost like a dare. If he attacked her first, she would take no fault in ripping his limbs from his body and sending him straight back to Hell. He could use a discorporation or two to put him back in line. He didn’t move closer, though. His fingers just twitched in the air like he wanted to rip her face from her skull. Given enough time, surely, they would fight in the sands. Instead, Lilith let him go, and Samael’s hand dropped back to his side.

“I want nothing to do with that _thing_ you call a son,” Samael told her, low and cruel. “It’s a demon spawn, that’s all. It doesn’t deserve a father, and it doesn’t _need _me. Barely needs you,” he spat, he hissed; Lilith held her ground and glared.

“You’re disgusting,” with venom, “and you’re miserable. You brought this on yourself, and instead of _dealing_ with it, you push it off onto me.”

Samael snorted and turned. He grabbed his lute and started to walk away, to which Lilith responded by grabbing. Her nails dug into his skin, sharp and burning, like knives and a pained reminder of what he’d done. He didn’t want reminders. He wanted to leave it all behind where he would take no names and no responsibility—wish it into dust, if he could. He would. He whirled around on his heel and yanked so hard that Lilith came falling forward, and he pushed her. Magic flew out from his fingertips in red tendrils to grab at her wrists, her ankles—restrain her and keep her far back, away, and then she started to struggle.

“What are you doing!? Samael! Let me—let me go!” for the briefest of moments, there was fear in her eye. She couldn’t see behind her, but she could hear the swirling, pulsing thing that opened up where Samael commanded.

“If you won’t _leave_ me,” he growled, “then maybe you brought this on yourself.”

All at once, she was shoved back into the hole that opened. The force sent air flying up around, whipping hair and dress alike, until the hole closed around her, and she was gone. What had meant to be a thing of power turned into a coward’s play, as Samael stood alone. Lilith was gone, and she would stay gone—banished. Samael may have kept a low profile, but it was choice all his own. He might have been a Prince of Hell, if he’d a mind for it. He much preferred humans and their flaws to the politics of Hell, and it left him with endless power, without a name.

And his name was certainly not Samael. So, he attested, but everything Lilith said had been _right._ He would do right by everyone but her, and in his quest to change himself, he would forget her. He had banished her outright, to a realm of pulsing thunder and glowing gray, where she would never escape unless he willed it. Unless she’d grown strong enough to force his hand, but he hadn’t thought of that in the moment. In the moment, Lilith had been gone, and Samael had been all the happier for it. Not quite at peace, but peace was a long way off.

When he met Asmodeus, there on the streets of London, the only thing that had kept Samael from treating him the same way was the lack of plausibility. Asmodeus was a powerful demon, and Samael knew that. Banishing him would be no easy task, made less easy by the public they walked through. Samael had kept his hands to himself, and his only defense had been to let it slip just how much he’d paid attention. Maybe he hadn’t been there to birthday parties and hard times, but demons didn’t do those things anyway. Samael had been right, he told himself; Asmodeus hadn’t needed him. Certainly, hadn’t needed Lilith, though she’d fueled his hatred.

With the end of the vision, Aziraphale understood. It chilled him straight to the bone; where he had expected it to enrage Lilith, even she just looked tired now. The flames were dying out around them, and Aziraphale’s feet were once again on the ground. Not that her strength was waning, but that she was losing the fight. Watching what Samael had done to her had dragged it out of her, and Aziraphale felt _sorry_. Like he wanted to reach out and take her hand and tell her that it would be alright—but he had no right to say it. To Lilith, he was the enemy. He was the one that Samael had softened for, had quieted for. Even that, she wasn’t convinced of, only that Aziraphale was in the bookshop being held where she believed it should have been her.

Maybe it should have been her, but Aziraphale wouldn’t give her that, either. It was a selfish thing for him to do, really. Being an angel, it should have been his goal to bring happiness, even to Lilith. Demons belonged together, and she was far more demon than she’d ever been a human. Samael had made sure of that, and in her veins ran his venom. Samael had stolen every chance at happiness and life she’d ever had. All so he could plant a seed in a Garden and let evil seep into humanity—and why, for that, Aziraphale didn’t know the reason. Lilith didn’t either, just the story. Just the consequence, which Samael did not know. He had lived his life without a one, and Lilith had lived them all. And still—

“He’s not like that anymore,” Aziraphale muttered; even he didn’t quite believe it now, but he had to try.

Lilith scoffed, “and you expect me to believe that? Why?” she looked at him now, fire crawling up her arms. “Because he tells you pretty things? Because he kisses you and brings you gifts?”

Aziraphale’s silence was stunned and all the answer that Lilith needed. That was _exactly_ why. The only Samael he’d ever known had been Crawly, Crowley, and nothing like the version Lilith presented. Lilith presented him the truth, and he could see that in the way it made her skin crawl. These were her wounds, and she wanted nothing more but to pour them onto someone else.

“He did all of those things to me and look where that landed me. I was _stuck_ in here for thousands of years, alone. All because Samael got a little _cocky _and thought if I was gone, he wouldn’t have to deal with me. Great, isn’t it?” she smiled. “He’s wonderful.”

“That’s not who he is,” Aziraphale tried again, earnestly. “He’s changed—I wish you could see that. I wish you could know—”

“Why do you keep defending him?!” she bellowed. “I thought you would _understand_! You of all people—hasn’t he threatened to leave you, too?! Hasn’t he—hasn’t he—?” she gripped her hands into her arms, and Aziraphale could see the tremors that rushed through her. Samael had threatened to leave, but never in earnest. Only once had Aziraphale believed him, and he still came back. He came back and stopped the world to save them all, and Aziraphale would never forget it. Not a moment of it.

All it had taken was a threat to never speak to him again, and Samael had stopped the world for Aziraphale. He had never stopped the world for Lilith, and maybe that’s what she wanted. The vision she showed Aziraphale first, the softer version: it had been what she wanted, what she couldn’t have. Not now. What man, woman, or other would look at her now and think she was worth holding? Her hair sparked flames; her blood was venom. She was a demon, a monster of Samael’s creation, and he locked her away.

“You—” Lilith looked at him then, a sudden craze through her eyes. “No, he’s gotten to you, hasn’t he? You’re not even you, anymore, you’re—what has he done to you?” she stepped forward, reaching out for Aziraphale. The binds had all but released him, and when she grabbed his wrists instead, her fingers burned like Hellfire. _Hellfire_.

She meant to save him, cleanse him of Samael’s _evil_ by eradicating him all together. Because she could—the fire that had raged all around them was _Hellfire_, and Aziraphale could have died at any moment. She chose this moment to grab him, to light his wrists aflame with her own power, because now she knew that there was nothing to be done. Aziraphale _belonged_ to Samael; another creature of his own making, without a mind to follow or a whim to care. Aziraphale would defend Samael because that’s what Samael _wanted_, and Lilith wouldn’t stand for it. She wouldn’t let another break like that, not if she could help it. Not if she could stand it, and the flames started to pour form her fingertips, and—

“Lilith, that’s enough!” a sudden shout, a sudden crack in the wall. A little pair of glasses, readers, singed and broken, fell through before _he_ did, and then he was standing there like he always did with his hand in his pocket. His suit was pulled together, his hair styled, and his eyes wide and serpentine. No glasses. Only a red strewn over his face that meant he was _angry. _Red lines popped through in his forehead like veins, veins filled with magic.

Lilith turned her attentions immediately, dropping Aziraphale’s wrists and throwing him to the side—his skin had burned a nasty color, and he could only stare in horror as Lilith pulled the fire in the room to herself. It spiraled, circled, and sparked her hair to light. Even her eyes seemed to glow in the flickering flame, with anger and _hurt_. She flung the flames at Samael and meant to singe him too, but he stood there, untouched, without so much as a fleck of ash on his suit. With that, the last of her fight died with the flames, and her shoulders hung as she stared.

“You found me,” she muttered, her eyes on the readers. A subtle clue, she thought, in the struggle it had been to grab Aziraphale. He’d left them somewhere he knew they would be found, where Samael could work his horrid magic and find a way back into the room, away from time and away from space. All things Samael knew too well.

“It wasn’t hard,” he said. “You’re not exactly subtle. Now why don’t we put an end to this—” when Samael stepped forward, the flames grew again. Just the same, they did not hurt a single thread in Samael’s jacket. He stood there, untouched and unhappy.

The fire wouldn’t hurt him. It was his own fire, from the venom he’d left so long ago. Lilith knew it, and it crippled her farther. She was powerless against Samael, because Samael _created_ her. He’d ruined her, broken her, destroyed every chance and every beauty she ever had for a selfish, stupid little whim. And all she could do was throw her hands at others; she could hurt Aziraphale. She might have even tried it, but what did Aziraphale matter to a thing like Samael? Just another piece of amusement for his time. Just another thing to listen to his pretty words and give him what he wanted.

“Lilith—” Samael tried, again, but the closer he came, the more he tried, the closer the flames inched backwards. Aziraphale was sitting against the wall, wrists and forearms charred, and the fire was coming closer.

“Why can’t I hurt you?” her voice was a shattered thing. “No matter what I do, you always just. Stand there,” she gestured to him. “You always have.”

“Is that what this is about?” Samael even deigned to look _shocked_ about it. Like he’d never considered a motive, only a solution. He didn’t _care_ why Lilith had come, just that she had to go—of that, she was certain.

“It’s what you deserve!” she shouted, suddenly surging up and stepping closer. “You took—you took _everything_ from me, and you just ran away! That’s all you’ve done, for thousands of years—you _ran away_ from me—pretended I didn’t exist. Look what you—look what you’ve _done_ to me!” and the fire grew to prove her point, at her command. Her veins were alighted with it, the blood vessels in her eyes.

Samael flinched.

“I thought I could take him from you,” and the flames died with her voice. “It took me so long to get out of here, and I thought—you deserve this.”

Aziraphale watched from his place on the floor. With the flame gone, he didn’t worry for his _life_, but everything else was a fair thing, he thought. There was tension between them; Lilith was so angry. Her anger had manifested into fire—Hellfire, but she wasn’t a demon. She was something entirely else together, and Aziraphale couldn’t place a name. Didn’t know if there was a name, just that she was Lilith. And Samael had made her that way, but the look on his face was so painfully Crowley.

“I do,” he said. “I deserve it all.”

Lilith looked at him, eyes wide and innocent all over again.

“But it’s not _me_, anymore, Lilith. It wasn’t since the beginning. That power is _yours_,” he stepped closer. “It’s always been yours; maybe it wasn’t a gift, but the moment it found you, it was yours. I don’t—” and he gestured into the air like he didn’t know the words. “I don’t _do_ fire, it’s not me. Too demon-y, or something. I do magic,” he said, and demonstrated with the red little flits of light from his fingers.

Lilith blinked. From behind her, Aziraphale’s eyes went wide. He’d never _seen_ that. As much as he’d doubted, now he believed. Crowley wasn’t—Crowley had never been. It really was Samael standing there. The body was the same, but Aziraphale didn’t know him. Maybe he never _had_.

“I—” but Lilith didn’t know the words any better than Samael had. Samael was right, though. The red grew out from his veins and sparkled like a gentle thing, like _magic._ Hers had always been fire. Something Samael didn’t _do_.

“It doesn’t make anything better, I know,” Samael rubbed the back of his neck. “But I didn’t come here to fight. Just let me take Aziraphale home; he’s not a part of this.”

“_You_ made him a part of this, the minute you traded me out for him,” Lilith spat. “Everything is _your_ fault. If you hadn’t—if all you wanted was to step into the Garden, you just had to ask! I would’ve—I would’ve _let you_.”

That stung more than all of it, the fact that Lilith would have let a demon into Eden if he had only asked. But there was more to it than that. Back before the dawn of man, Samael had been a demon, through and through. He hadn’t just tempted Eve; he’d planned the whole thing. He planted the tree of knowledge, he laid out the plans in Hell. It was his idea, his spiteful, angry idea because he’d Fallen. Eventually, he would explain it all. But the reason didn’t matter so much as the consequence, and Lilith was the face of all he’d done. He’d done so much that she’d tried, _tried_, to do it back. She’d tried to kill Aziraphale, and only because she believed Samael had broken him, too. Samael sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And it was all he said.

All at once, Lilith drained. The light in her eyes, the fire in her veins, all of it died at the single word of an apology. She’d waited six-thousand years to hear him say it, and she thought that after all that time, it would be meaningless, that she’d even laughed if he did. There wasn’t even a bubble in her chest, a thought to laugh. It hit her. Hard. She wanted to cry and wail and scream all at once, but all she could do was stare forward. Samael looked real. Genuine. Like he meant it with every fiber of his being, every lie he’d ever told, and every wrong he’d ever done. He _meant_ it.

He stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Lilith,” Samael said once more. “I’m sorry, for all of it. I used you, and I thought I could just get rid of you. That was—”

“Cruel,” Lilith finished.

“Cruel,” Samael agreed. When Lilith fell into him, he didn’t push her away. He held her close, instead, with her face against his chest, and his arms tightly wrapped around her shoulders. Sobs wracked her body; she trembled and shook, but Samael didn’t let her go. Not this time. Into her hair, he whispered one more apology, and her nails dug into the fabric of his jacket. Another long moment passed, and another, until Lilith had finished and stepped away.

She scrubbed at her face until the tears were gone, then looked at Samael with a resolute stare that said more than she. Lilith was ready to let it go; an apology was all she’d ever wanted. She hadn’t known until she’d heard it, but that was all she wanted. It wouldn’t solve a thing, it wouldn’t change what happened, but it was a door to stepping forward and finding something of herself. Hell was not her home, and she would not be confined there no more than she would confine herself to this little room. All she needed was to _know_ that Samael knew. That he knew what he’d done, that it wasn’t something she’d imagined in a lovesick story. It was _real._

“I guess you really are different,” she said in mock amusement. Still, she smiled.

“A little bit,” Samael agreed.

Around them, the room began to break, dissolve. Die. The pulsing slowed to a halt, cracks began to grow, and all the magic Lilith had poured in fled away, back to her veins. The in-pour didn’t stop until the three of them were quietly nestled back inside the bookshop, where it had all begun. The mess was still the same, the readers were back on the floor where Samael had found them, and the room was gone. In the end, it was Lilith’s room more than Samael’s, and she swallowed it back into her palm with a vow to never do something so horrid again. Then, she headed for the door.

“Lilith,” Samael called, turning to follow her movements.

She stopped just before the door, looking over her shoulder.

“If you ever wanted to come back around,” Samael shrugged, “or maybe bring Asmodeus. I wouldn’t—I would like that.”

Lilith smiled a bit warm and nodded. “We’ll see,” she said and was gone a second later. Out the door, to the right, and out into the streets, with the people—another face.

Like that, she was gone. The situation was over, and Samael had another concern all together. Aziraphale was hunched up against a bookshelf, his hands still out in front of him like he was terrified of moving. Like one movement would break his hands right off and end his life. Hellfire _killed_ angels. Apparently, it wounded them beyond repair if left in small amounts, and the wound it left was an ugly, black looking thing that smelled of rotten skin. The ache traveled all the way to the angel inside the body, and it hurt. Still, he wouldn’t cry. Even with Lilith gone, Aziraphale only closed his eyes as Samael made his way across the shop, to kneel in front of him.

Samael’s fingers closed around his wrists and the sizzling started immediately. It hurt, the healing, but Aziraphale opened his eyes and did not peal them away. There was no way to fix this completely, not with Hellfire as the weapon, but Samael still tried. There was magic there, too, along with the healing press of his hands. When he was finished, there were nasty scars in the wake of burned and rotted flesh—it was better this way, Aziraphale winced. It was better to be scarred than broken. It was better to be whole, but these scars would be with him forever.

“That’s the best I can do,” Samael whispered.

“Thank you, Crowl—” Aziraphale stopped, and their eyes met. Aziraphale saw the hurt well up in Samael’s eyes, but it was the truth. “That’s not your name, though, is it?”

Samael stiffened, and when he reached for Aziraphale, it hurt more than it needed to, to watch Aziraphale tense up and pull away. This wouldn’t play out like the rescue stories Aziraphale had always wanted, and Samael was not a hero, this time. He’d never really been a hero, not in the overall scheme of things. He cleaned up messes he created, then made another one without thought. He went through life without thinking, or he had. Aziraphale had changed everything. Samael _thought_ about things. He faced consequences. He cared. One bite of the truth had ruined it all.

“I just want to know _why_,” Aziraphale muttered. “Everything she showed me—was it true? Do you even know what she showed me?”

“I watched,” Samael admitted. “It was harder to break in than I thought it would be, and—it’s not an excuse. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“That’s not what matters.”

Samael knew it wasn’t. What mattered was frightening. What mattered was something he didn’t want to talk about. What mattered was _the_ most important thing he could talk about. He wished he could take Aziraphale into his arms and apologize, tell him that it was all a lie. Lilith was trying to tear them a part, turn Aziraphale against him with lies. All of that would be the lie. The worst one Samael could tell. He had to tell the truth. If he didn’t do that now, he would lose Aziraphale forever.

“All of it was true,” Samael whispered. “My name is Samael.”

He’d been an angel, once. A long time ago, and his name had been Samael. He had had many names, even among the angels, but it was the Blindness of God that had spread. That was where it all began, when the angels knew that Samael was Her favorite. That he could do anything, and She would turn a blind eye to his transgressions. Samael had been at the forefront of things, when the Fall began. He’d supported it, the angels sinning. The angels Falling. Eventually, even God couldn’t keep a blindness to his crimes. She had cast him out Herself. Thrown him from Heaven in the winds of the Fall and not looked back, and all for his question.

_Why?_

Damnation on the whim of free will seemed a petty, foolish thing, and Samael would watch God punish it for millennia. Always questioning, always wondering, and always fighting for it. Samael found himself on every side in every war, of every conflict—if only so the humans could make their own decisions. After the first centuries, Samael hadn’t been a cause of evil, anymore. Just an advocate for choice. Evil started in the Garden, where he planted his seed for revenge. God had cast the angels out, so Samael would cast the humans out. It was a petty, foolish thing, and he regretted it.

From there, it had all been petty and foolish. He had hated Aziraphale, and he admitted it openly. He had seen God’s new favorite _thing _and was angry for a life he’d lost. Things were different. He’d been different. Aziraphale wasn’t like the rest of them, and it had shown Samael that _he_ didn’t have to be like the rest of the demons, either. He could be anyone he wanted. Even if he’d chosen the name for Amaranthine, he had kept it for Aziraphale. He wanted to be everything Aziraphale thought he was—there was a time he had even wanted to be everything Lilith thought he was. A time long past, but it changed nothing. Everything was true, and he had wronged them both.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Samael continued. “I thought you would hate me, if I told you. I suppose that’s a stupid thing. You knowing and all.” Samael sat back on the floor, legs folded, and rested his head in his hand.

“I haven’t been entirely honest with you either,” Aziraphale said. He still couldn’t bring his eyes to meet Samael’s. He was afraid of what he might find there.

Samael sat in silence, waiting for Aziraphale to continue.

“Do you remember Amaranthine? Of course, you do, no,” Aziraphale gave a nervous laugh. “That was a silly thing to ask. You—you raised her, you cared about her. You—”

“Sat with her while she _died. _Yes, angel, I remember.”

_Angel._

Aziraphale gulped and continued. “There was a reason I couldn’t help her. There was a reason _you_ couldn’t help her. I don’t—I don’t know the reason. It’s rude to question the Almighty, you know.”

“The Almighty? What does God have to do with this?”

“That’s just _it;_ She has everything to do with it. She—The Almighty _took_ Amaranthine. She didn’t Ascend, no, not like Jesus or Mary, but her soul, I suppose, was taken.”

“Taken,” Samael repeated. He had nothing more to say after that. All he could do was stare at Aziraphale, disbelief. A punishment, he supposed, for his actions. God found the first human he cared about and ripped her out of his arms, forever. He never got to see her future, and he never would. For God was just as petty as he.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said.

“What a pair we make,” Samael snorted. “Bunch of liars, and I’m the worst of it.”

Samael pulled himself to his feet and walked off into the shop. He didn’t know what to think, what to do. Maybe Lilith had gotten what she wanted after all—maybe he and Aziraphale would _never_ be the same again. It made the packet worthless; what good was a house out of London if they couldn’t move past the entirety of their lives? Samael had spent six-thousand year lying about everything, and Aziraphale lied about the most important thing in Samael’s life. Truly, what a pair. Now that there was doubt, Samael was sure they would never come back from it. But.

Aziraphale had stood. He had thought about it in all the seconds they had. There were things about Samael he couldn’t deny, and it started with Amaranthine. He’d fought to save her, to protect her, to raise her. He gave her the best life he could, and he _loved_ her. Aziraphale was sure of that—he could sense love. He’d never sensed anything less from Samael. Always love. When Aziraphale had needed him, he’d come. He’d been right there at Jane Austin’s funeral to take Aziraphale into his arms and hold him, to keep him warm and safe. To keep him from making bad decisions. Then, the Bastille, when Aziraphale would surely have perished without him. The church, where Samael should have never thought to tread. If he hadn’t Aziraphale wouldn’t have been disappointed—it was safer for him to stay away. He’d come, though, and saved Aziraphale’s books like it was nothing. It was everything.

Those were the big things, but there were the little things, too. Like the house. The letter that Samael kept tucked in his pocket like Aziraphale didn’t know he kept it. Samael had read all the letters Aziraphale wrote, once, and they were stored lovingly in a box under his bed. When they started packing, Aziraphale was sure he would find it, ask, and Samael would deny everything. There were softer things, too, like the way Samael looked at him, held him, and kissed him. Samael had had lovers over the centuries, but never quite like this. Aziraphale knew. He knew more than he’d let himself, because he’d let himself _doubt_. He’d watched Samael lie, and that had made him think _everything_ a lie. The lying had stopped, somewhere. Aziraphale knew.

When Samael looked back over his shoulder, once: that wasn’t a lie. There was a look in his eye that spoke of his biggest regret. That he had let things get so bad _this_ was compromised. His relationship, the life they were building out of the pieces left behind. Learning the truth didn’t mean the foundation fell away, because somewhere, the lying had stopped. Aziraphale knew. It had to have stopped, or they wouldn’t be standing so close together, as they did, with so much to lose. If it had all been about lying, there would be nothing to lose. But there was something to lose.

Everything.

Yielding to whatever Lilith had left behind would have been a fool thing to do, after everything. After six-thousand years of watching Samael fight with himself, for his own folly and his own mistakes, Aziraphale knew where the truth really lay. Samael had been fighting himself since he stepped foot on the wall of Eden and knew Heaven was more than it played. Samael had been fighting himself since he realized what his presence meant for the humans. Samael had been fighting since he was wise enough to fight, and his fight was won.

“Don’t go,” Aziraphale called after him. “Please.”

Samael stopped and turned, looking back at Aziraphale from head to toe. The scars around his wrists were a horrid thing to stare at, but Samael wanted nothing more but to take those wrists in his hand and kiss them healed. It wouldn’t work, but surely, he might have an eternity to fix it. If Aziraphale would let him have it, Samael would take an eternity to set things right.

“Please,” Aziraphale continued. “The weather, you see. It’s dreadful out, really. I think you should stay. I could make tea, perhaps. Would you like tea?”

“Aziraphale—”

“I want you to say,” Aziraphale said, surer this time. “I don’t want you to step outside and leave me wondering if you’ll ever return. Oh, I couldn’t bear that.”

“I wouldn’t—no. You’re right,” Samael folded his arms. “That sounds like something I would do.”

Aziraphale’s smile was more of a grimace than something joyful, but he smiled, nonetheless. “You’ve threatened to before, I mean. You can understand why I’m nervous.

“This whole thing,” Aziraphale continued, stepping forward, “we can figure it out. Watching the things she showed me left me with one thought: that I would never want to see you hold another human—or anyone, really. Even if you’ve lied, I’ve seen how hard you’ve tried to do better. And you have, you’re quite a nice—well,” Aziraphale stiffened.

“Thank you, angel,” Samael replied something low and quiet, but it was the loudest thing Aziraphale had ever heard.

“Oh, Crowley—” Aziraphale all but threw himself forward, and Crowley caught him in a tight embrace. They stood there in the shop, arms wrapped around each other, pressed so close that neither one stopped where the other began. One being, one breath. Aziraphale pressed his face into Crowley’s neck and _reveled_ in it. Crowley, in return, smiled into Aziraphale’s hair.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, once more, “I love you.”

Crowley said nothing in return, because there was nothing to say. Aziraphale had said it all for him, in pretty little words. Beautiful, as it were, as Aziraphale always was, it meant nothing in comparison to one name, and one name alone. Crowley. Because that, for six-thousand years, certainly was his name, and he would need no other.

**Author's Note:**

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